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Portraits of Fellow Officers in Prison 

Left to right— Top line: Capt. Cook, Capt. Burrage 

Middle line: Adj't. Gardiner, Col. Sprague, Capt. Howe 

Lower line: Lieut. Estabrooks, Adj't Putnam 



" Fotsan et haec oUm metninisse juvabit" ' 

i 

Lights and Shadows in/ 
Confederate Prisons 

A Personal Experience 
1864-5 



By 

Homer B. Sprague, Ph.D. 

Bvt.-Colonel 13th Conn. Vols. 

Sometime Professor in Cornell and President of the University 

of North Dakota 

Author of "History of the 13th Conn. Inf. Vols.," "Right 

and Wrong in our War between the States," and 

"The European War, Its Cause and Cure" 



With Portraits 



G. P. Putnam's Sons 

New York and London 
ZTbe Icnicketbocher ipcess 

1915 



EU 1 1 



Copyright, 1915 

BY 

HOMER B. SPRAGUE 



Ube ftnfcfterbocfter iprese, mew ll?orft 



MAY 22 1915 



^0 

THE ALUMNI OF 

THE UNIVERSITIES of 
YALE, CORNELL, and NORTH DAKOTA 

IN WHICH RESPECTIVELY THE AUTHOR WAS 

STUDENT, PROFESSOR, PRESIDENT ; 

TO 

THOUSANDS OF HIS PUPILS YET LIVING; 

TO 

HIS COMPANIONS OF THE LOYAL LEGION, 

COMRADES OF THE GRAND ARMY OF THE REPUBLIC, 

ALL SURVIVING OFFICERS AND SOLDIERS 

UNION OR CONFEDERATE; 

ALL WHO CHERISH THE MEMORY OF THE PATRIOT DEAD 

AND ALL WHO HATE WAR, 

THIS RECORD IS AFFECTIONATELY 

DEDICATED 



PREFACE 

This narrative of prison life differs from all 
others that I have seen, in that it is careful to put 
the best possible construction upon the treat- 
ment of Union prisoners by the Confederates, and 
to state and emphasize kindnesses and courtesies 
received by us from them. 

For the accuracy of the facts stated I am 
indebted to a diary kept from day to day during 
the whole of my imprisonment, and to the best 
obtainable records. The exact language of conver- 
sations cannot of course always be remembered, 
but I aim always to give correctly the substance. 

I am aware that the opinions I express in regard 
to Sheridan's strategy at the Battle of Winchester 
are not those generally entertained. But I give 
reasons. His own account of the battle is sadly 
imperfect. To capture but five guns and nine 
battle flags at a cost of four thousand six hundred 
and eighty killed and wounded, and leave almost 
the entire rebel army in shape to fight two great 
battles within a month, was not the programme 
he had planned. Early said ''Sheridan should 
have been cashiered. " 



Preface 

)e blamed more for venturing to question 
policy of subjugation. He had pro- 
ith great power and in the most unmis- 
nguage in Congress that * ' any portion of 
e had a perfect right to throw off their 
old government and establish a new one." But 
now, instead of standing strictly on the defens- 
ive, or attempting by diplomacy to settle the 
conflict which had become virtually international, 
he entered upon a war of conquest. 

I do not blame him for refusing to exchange 
prisoners, nor President Davis for allowing them to 
starve and freeze. Both were right, if war is right. 
It was expedient that thirty, fifty, or a hundred 
thousand of us should perish, or be rendered 
physically incapable of bearing arms again. The 
''deep damnation of the taking off" was due not 
to individual depravity but to military necessity. 

H. B. S. 
Brighton, Mass., U. S. A., 



CONTENTS 

Preface ....... v 

CHAPTER I 

The First, or Forenoon, Battle of Winchester, Indecisive — 

Sheridan's and Early's Mistakes — The Capture . . I 

CHAPTER II 

At Winchester — On the Road thence to Tom's Brook, New 

Market, and Staunton . . . , . -17 

CHAPTER III 

At Staunton — Thence to Waynesboro, Meacham's, and 

Richmond ........ 32 

CHAPTER IV 

At Libby — Thence to Clover, Danville, Greensboro, and 

Salisbury — Effort to Pledge us not to Attempt Escape . 43 

CHAPTER V 
At Salisbury — Great Plot to Escape — How Frustrated . 60 

CHAPTER VI 

From Salisbury to Danville — The Forlorn Situation — 
Effort to "Extract Sunshine from Cucumbers" — The 
Vermin — The Prison Commandant a Yale Man — 
Proposed Theatricals — Rules Adopted — Studies — 
Vote in Prison for Lincoln and McClellan — Killing 

Time 77 

vii 



V 



'^ 



viii Contents 

PAGE 

CHAPTER VII 

Exact Record of Rations in Danville — Opportunity to Cook 
— Daily Routine of Proceedings from Early Dawn till 
Late at Night. ....... 93 

CHAPTER VIII 

Continual Hope of Exchange of Prisoners — " Flag-of -Truce 
Fever!" — Attempted Escape by Tunneling — Repeated 
Escapes by Members of Water Parties, and how we 
Made the Roll-Call Sergeant's Count Come Out all 
Right every Time — Plot to Break Out by Violence, 
and its Tragic End ....... 106 

CHAPTER IX 

Kind Clergymen Visit us and Preach Excellent Discourses — 
Colonel Smith's Personal Good Will to me — His Offer — 
John F. Ficklin's Charity — My Good Fortune — 
Supplies of Clothing Distributed — Deaths in Prison . 120 

CHAPTER X 
Results and Reflections — The Right and the Wrong of it All 138 

Appendix 153 

Index . . . . . . .157 



Lights and Shadows in Confederate 
Prisons 



\ 



Lights and Shadows 
Confederate Prisons 



CHAPTER I 

The First, or Forenoon, Battle of Winchester, indecisive — 
Sheridan's and Early's Mistakes — The Capture. 

"War is Hell,'* said our great strategist, 
General W. T. Sherman. According to its latest 
code, with few or no exceptions, the end justifies 
the means, and, if necessary to success, it is right 
to do wrong. 

Fifty years ago one of the fairest regions on 
earth was that portion of Virginia extending south- 
westerly about a hundred and twenty miles from 
Harper's Ferry to the divide beyond Staunton, 
where rise the headwaters of the James. Walled 
in by the Blue Ridge on the southeast and parallel 
ranges of the Alleghanies on the northwest, it 
takes its name from the beautiful river which 
winds along its length, and which the Indians 



2 Lights and Shadows 

poetically christened Shenandoah (Daughter of 

the Stars!). When some three hundred of us 

prisoners of war walked wearily a hundred miles 

from Winchester to Staunton in September, 1864, 

it was still rich and lovely. A few weeks later, 

the necessities of war made it a scene of utter 

desolation. 

Grant had rightly concluded [says Sheridan^], 
that it was time to bring the war home to a people 
engaged in raising crops from a prolific soil to feed the 
country's enemies, and devoting to the Confederacy 
its best youth. I endorsed the program in all its 
parts; for the stores of meat and grain that the val- 
ley provided, and the men it furnished for Lee's 
depleted regiments, were the strongest auxiliaries 
he possessed. 

Accordingly Grant issued orders with increasing 
emphasis, particularly in August and September, 
to make the whole region ''a barren waste," to 

destroy or carry off the crops and animals; do all 
possible damage to railroads; seize stock of every 
description; take away all negro laborers so as to 
prevent further planting; hold as prisoners of war, if 
sympathizing with the rebellion, all male citizens 
under fifty years of age capable of bearing arms, etc. 

In obedience to th^se commands, Sheridan 
engaged with alacrity in the work of destruction. 
In a few weeks he reported as follows : 

^Personal Memoirs, vol. i., p, 487. 



In Confederate Prisons 3 

I have destroyed 2000 barns filled with wheat, hay, 
and farming implements; over 70 mills filled with 
flour and wheat ; and driven in front of my army 4000 
head of stock. 

Said one of his officers who knew whereof he was 
speaking, "A crow flying through the valley would 
have to carry his own rations, for he could pick 
up nothing! " 

At Winchester, the principal town in the 
Shenandoah Valley, one hundred and fifty miles 
N. N. W. of Richmond, with a population of about 
four thousand, the 19th of that September was a 
day of glory but also of sorrow. Four thousand 
six hundred and eighty of the Union Army, killed 
and wounded, told how dearly Sheridan's first 
great victory was gained. 

The battle was fought over three, four, or five 
square miles, east and north from Winchester, 
for the most part near the Opequon Creek, from 
which it is sometimes called the "Battle of the 
Opequon." To reach the field, the bulk of 
Sheridan's army, starting at three o'clock in the 
morning from Berry ville ten miles east, had to 
pass through a gorge in which for a considerable 
distance the turnpike extends towards Winchester. 
Sheridan*s plan at first was to bring his army, 
except Merritt's and Averell's Divisions of Tor- 



Lights and Shadows 

Cavalry, through the defile, post the Sixth 

m the left, the Nineteenth on the right, 

>ook's Army of West Virginia across the 

n turnpike (leading southwest from Win- 

, and so cut off all retreat up the valley. 

Meanwhile those two cavalry divisions were to 

make a long detour on our right to the north from 

Berry ville, and close in upon the Confederate left. 

Sheridan felt sure of victory, for we outnumbered 

the enemy nearly two to one. Had our army got 

into position early in the morning, we should have 

captured or destroyed the whole of them. 

At early dawn Mcintosh's Brigade of Wilson's 
Division of Torbert's Cavalry dashed through the 
ravine, closely followed by Chapman's Brigade 
and five batteries of horse artillery. Sheridan and 
his staff followed. They surprised and captured 
a small earthwork, and, though fiercely assaulted, 
held it till the van of the Sixth Corps relieved them. 
The narrow pass of the Berryville pike was so 
obstructed by artillery, ambulances, ammunition 
wagons, etc., that it was nearly eight o'clock before 
the Sixth Corps, which should have been in posi- 
tion with Wilson's Cavalry at sunrise, began to 
arrive; and it was fully two hours later when the 
Nineteenth Corps debouched and deployed. Here 
was miscalculation or bad management or both. 



In Confederate Prisons 5 

This long delay, which the quick-moving cavalry 
leader Sheridan had not foreseen nor provided for, 
gave time for Early to call in the strong divisions 
of Generals Gordon, Breckenridge, and Rodes, 
from the vicinity of Stephenson's Depot several 
miles away. They left Patton's Brigade of In- 
fantry, and a part of Fitzhugh Lee's Cavalry to 
oppose Torbert. 

Hearing nothing from Torbert, who had now 
been gone seven or eight hours on his circuitous 
route, Sheridan suddenly changed his whole plan 
of action, a perilous maneuver in the face of an 
active enemy while the battle is already raging 
intermittently. Instead of flinging Crook's Army 
of West Virginia, 17 regiments and 3 batteries, 
across the Staunton pike, to front northeasterly 
and cut off all possible retreat of the Confederates, 
he determined to move it to our right and deploy 
it in line with the Nineteenth. Doubtless this 
was best under the circumstances, though it left 
to the enemy the broad smooth highway as a line 
of retreat up the valley. 

Grover's Division (2d of the Nineteenth Corps) 
in four brigades formed line of battle in front and 
to the right of the gorge. In touch on the left 
was Ricketts' Division of the Sixth Corps, and 
resting on Ricketts' left was Getty's Division of 



6 Lights and Shadows 

the same corps. Getty had i6 regiments in line; 
Ricketts, 12 with 6 batteries; Grover, 20 with 3 
batteries. 

Had Sheridan been able to strike Early by half- 
past eight with the Sixth and Nineteenth, he would 
have crushed him in detail. Had Early massed 
the divisions of Gordon, Breckenridge, and Rodes, 
and hurled them at the mouth of the canyon at 
ten o'clock while half of the Nineteenth was still 
entangled in it, he would probably have split our 
army into three parts, and destroyed those already 
arrived. 

It was now eleven o'clock, and the Army of 
West Virginia at last emerged from the defile. 
To make room for its movement in our rear behind 
Grover' s Division, and to hold the enemy in play 
until it should have taken its place on the right of 
the Nineteenth, and perhaps to await there the 
appearance of Torbert's Cavalry, it was desirable 
that Grover should advance. Sheridan of course 
meant the whole front of the Sixth and Nineteenth 
to keep in a continuous line. At first it seemed to 
me that the regiments of the Nineteenth over- 
lapped; but the lines of advance were slightly 
divergent, and wide breaks began to appear 
between battalions. Especially on the left of the 
Nineteenth a large and widening gap appeared; for 



In Confederate Prisons 7 

Ricketts had been instructed to guide on the 
Berry ville pike, and that bore away to the left 
and south. 

My battalion, the veteran Thirteenth Conn. 
Infantry, should have been led by my Colonel, 
C. D. Blinn; but he was sick the night before, and 
in the morning, at the crossing of the Opequon, he 
fell out, and left the command to me. He had 
no part in the battle. Our Thirteenth deserves a 
passing notice. It was the favorite regiment of 
General Birge, its first colonel.' When he was 
made brigadier, the regiment entered the brigade 
commanded by Colonel E. L. Molineux. Birge 
was never so happy as when riding into action, 
and Molineux, who had been severely wounded 
in the same battle with me, was not over-cautious. 
My regiment and both brigades, the first and 
second of Grover's Division, had caught the spirit 
of those two commanders. Quite generally they 



^In New Orleans it was known as "Butler's Dandy Regiment"; 
for it was then better dressed than any other. It wore dark blue, 
which Birge had procured through his uncle, Buckingham, the 
war governor of Connecticut. At the siege of Port Hudson it 
had distinguished itself above all other regiments by furnishing 
as volunteers nearly one-fourth of the celebrated "Storming 
Column" of one thousand men called for by General N. P. 
Banks the second day after the disastrous assault on that fortress 
(June 14, 1863). Birge was selected by Banks to lead the forlorn 
hope. 



8 Lights and Shadows 

mistook the forward movement for an immediate 
charge. 

We had been under an intermittent fire for some 
time, but now the advance intensified the conflict. 
The chief anxiety of good soldiers at such a time, 
as I often noticed, is to get at the enemy as soon 
as possible, and cease to be mere targets. Their 
enthusiasm now accelerated their pace to a double- 
quick, and was carrying them too far to the front. 
Birge and Molineux endeavored in vain to check 
their rapidity. My battalion, I think, was nearest 
the rebel line. 

Between eleven and twelve the divisions of 
Getty, Ricketts, and Grover, forty-eight regiments 
in all, to which were attached eight light batteries 
with reserve artillery, began to move forward. 
It was a grand spectacle. At first the movement 
was steady, and we thought of Scott's lines, 

The host moves like a deep-sea wave, 
Where rise no rocks its pride to brave. 
High-swelling, dark, and slow. 

But all is quickly changed. 

Looking back upon that scene after the lapse of 
more than fifty years, its magnificence has not yet 
faded. I see as in a dream our long bending wave 
of blue rolling slowly at first but with increas- 



In Confederate Prisons 9 

ing speed, foam- tipped with flags here and there 
and steel-crested with Birge's bayonets yonder; 
gHmpses of cavalry in the distance moving as if on 
wings with the lightness of innumerable twinkling 
feet; numberless jets of smoke across the fields 
marking the first line of Confederate infantry, 
their musketry rattling precisely like exploding 
bunches of firecrackers; batteries galloping to 
position, the thunder of a dozen smiting the ear 
more rapidly than one could count ; the buzz, hiss, 
whistle, shriek, crash, hurricane of projectiles; the 
big shot from batteries in front and from Braxton's 
artillery on our right ripping up the ground and 
bounding away to the rear and the left; horses 
and riders disappearing in the smoke of exploding 
shells; the constant shouting of our officers in- 
distinctly heard, and now and then the peculiar 
well-known ** rebel yell"; and finally the com- 
mand, HALT ! LIE DOWN ! Molineux and Birge were 
too far to the front, and the line must be rectified. 
Ricketts, as we pressed forward, had thrown 
Keifer's Brigade (2d of Third Division, Sixth 
Corps), seven regiments, into the broadening in- 
terval directly in front of the mouth of the gorge; 
but it was not sufficient. 

It was now Early's opportimity; but he was 
hours too late, just as Sheridan had been. He 



lo Lights and Shadows 

had seen our Sixth Corps and Nineteenth emerge 
and deploy, had beheld our rapid and somewhat 
disorderly approach, had noted the widening 
spaces between our battalions and divisions, had 
observed the havoc wrought by his artillery and 
musketry, ten thousand of our soldiers seeming to 
sink under it; had had time to mass his forces; 
and now it was "up to him" to hurl them against 
our centre. It was the strategy inaugurated by 
Epaminondas at Leuctra and perfected by Napo- 
leon in many a hard battle, breaking the enemy's 
centre by an irresistible charge, dividing and 
conquering. Rodes had been killed at a battery in 
front of our brigade. His veterans and Gordon's, 
six thousand strong' constituted the charging col- 
umn. Neither Sheridan nor any other Federal his- 
torian appears to have done justice to this charge. 
Pickett's at Gettysburg was not more brilliant. 

With yells distinctly heard above the roar they 
advanced. The batteries on each side redoubled 
their discharges. From our irregular line of 
infantry extending more than a mile blazed inces- 
sant sheets and spurts of flame, the smoke at times 
hiding the combatants. Gordon was heading 
toward the now nearly empty ravine. My horse 

^ Six thousand is Gordon's statement in his Reminiscences, 
page 320. 



In Confederate Prisons ii 

had just been shot under me. I lost two in that 
fight. Dismounted I walked from the right of my 
battalion to the left, cautioning my men against 
wasting their ammunition, bidding them take 
sure aim, pick out the rebel officers, and not fire 
too high. They were shooting from a recumbent 
position, or resting on one knee; lying fiat on their 
backs to reload. As I reached the left, I glanced to 
the right and saw several of them starting to their 
feet, and a little further on, two or three began 
to run back. I rushed to the spot shouting, 
^'Back to your places!" I saw the cause: the 
regiments on our right were retreating. I was 
astounded, for we were expecting an order to 
advance instantly. At that moment Lieutenant 
Handy, an aide of our brigade commander, 
rode up, pale, excited, his hands flung up as if in 
despair. My men were springing to their feet. 

"What are those orders?" I demanded. 

"Retreat, retreat! get to the rear as fast as 
possible," he replied. 

"Battalion, rise up; shoulder arms — " I com- 
manded. Before I could finish the order, one of 
Sheridan's staff came on a swift gallop, his horse 
white with foam. 

"For God's sake, what does this mean?" said 
he; "this retreat must be stopped!" 



■^ 



12 Lights and Shadows 

"Battalion, lie down," I shouted; "our brigade 
commander ordered retreat!" 

" It*s all wrong. If this position's lost, all's lost. 
Here you have some cover. Hold it to the last. 
I'll bring supports immediately." Striking spurs 
into his steed, he vanished in the direction of the 
retreating regiments. 

Except the few who had heard my command 
and remained in position, perhaps seventy-five 
or a hundred, who kept blazing away at the Con- 
federates, rising a little to kneel and fire, Grover's 
Division, and all we could see of that of Ricketts, 
had gone to pieces, swept away like chaff before a 
whirlwind. Not a Union flag now in sight, but 
plenty of the "Stars and Bars!" Our sputtering 
fire checked some directly in front; but most of 
the on-rushing masses were deflected by the nature 
of the ground. 

Out of our view and about half a mile in our 
rear was Dwight's Division, the First of the 
Nineteenth Corps. It had been left in reserve. 
It was in line of battle and ready for the onset. 
The confused fragments of Grover were rallied 
behind it. Had the ground been favorable, and 
had no unexpected opposition been encountered, 
Gordon would have crushed Dwight. 

But in fewer minutes than we have occupied in 



In Confederate Prisons 13 

describing this charge, a tremendous and prolonged 
roar and rattle told us that the battle was on 
behind us more than in front. Amid the din 
arose a quick succession of deafening crashes, 
and shot and shell came singing and howling over 
us from the left. Russell's Division (First of the 
Sixth Corps) comprising eleven infantry regiments 
and one of heavy artillery, behind which the broken 
battalions of Ricketts had been reassembling, 
was now smiting the right flank of Gordon's six 
thousand. Although the charge came too late 
we cannot but admire the strategy that directed 
it, and the bravery of the infantry of Gordon, 
Rodes, and Ramseur, as well as that of the cavalry 
of Lomax, Jackson, and Johnson, and of Fitzhugh 
Lee who fell severely wounded. But they had not 
foreseen the terrible cross-fire from Russell, who 
died at the head of his division, a bullet piercing 
his breast and a piece of shell tearing through his 
heart. Nor had they calculated on confronting 
the long line of D wight, nine regiments with the 
Fifth New York Battery, all of which stood like a 
stone breakwater. Against it Gordon's masses, 
broken by the irregularities of the ground, dashed 
in vain. Under the ceaseless fire of iron and lead 
the refluent v/aves came pouring back. Our army 
was saved. 



14 Lights and Shadows 

But we few, who, in obedience to explicit orders 
from headquarters, had held our position stiffly 
farthest to the front when all the rest of Grover's 
and Ricketts* thousands had retreated — we were 
lost. A column behind a rebel flag was advancing 
straight upon us unchecked by our vigorous fire. 
Seeing that they meant business, I commanded, 
*'Fix Bayonets!" At that instant the gray surges 
converged upon us right and left and especially 
in our rear. We seemed in the middle of the 
rebel army. In the crater of such a volcano, fine- 
spun theories, poetic resolves to die rather than be 
captured — these are point-lace in a furnace. A 
Union officer, Capt. W. Frank Tiemann of the 
159th N. Y., Molineux's Brigade, was showing 
fight, and half a dozen Confederates with clubbed 
muskets were rushing upon him. I leaped to the 
spot, sword in hand, and shouted with all the sem- 
blance I could assume of fierce authority, 

"Down with those muskets! Stop! I com- 
mand you. " They lowered them. 

"Who the hell are you?" they asked. 

"I'll let you know. " Turning instantly to four 
or five Confederate officers, I demanded: "Do you 
mean to massacre my men?" 

Two or three replied: "No. By G — ! YouVe 
shown yourselves brave, and you shall be re- 



In Confederate Prisons 15 

spected. Yes, you fought d — d well, seein' you had 
the d — dest brigade to fight against in the whole 
Confederate Army." 

"What brigade are you?" I asked. 

"Ramseur^s old brigade; and there's nothin' 
this side o' hell can lick it." 

"You're brave enough," said another; "but 
damn you, you've killed our best general," 

"Who's that?" I asked. 

"Rodes; killed right in front of you." 

"I thought Early was your best General." 

"Not by a d— sight. Old Jubal's drunk- 
drunk as a fool." 

I was never more highly complimented than at 
this moment; but the stunning consciousness of 
being a prisoner, the bitterest experience of my 
life, the unspeakable disappointment, the intense 
mortification — these are even to this day poorly 
mitigated, much less compensated, by the exces- 
sive praises heaped upon me by those Confederate 
officers for my supposed bravery. That they 
were sincere I cannot doubt ; for it was customary 
on the battle-field for the rebels to strip prisoners 
of all valuables, but no one of the fifty or one 
htmdred near me was robbed. Tiemann, whose 
life I had perhaps saved, was even privileged to 
keep his canteen of whiskey, of which he gave me 



i6 In Confederate Prisons 

a drink by and by to keep me in good spirits! I 
realized the truth of Bums's lines: 

^ Inspiring bold John Barleycorn! 

What dangers thou canst make us scorn! 

Wi' tippenny, we fear nae evil; 

Wi' usquebaugh, we'll face the devil! 



CHAPTER II 

At Winchester — On the Road thence to Tom's Brook, New 
Market, and Staunton. 

There were two battles that Monday between 
Sheridan and Early, the first indecisive, though 
bloody, a drawn game; the second, after a com- 
parative lull of several hours, a fierce struggle in 
which the v/hole front of the Sixth, Nineteenth, 
and Crook's Corps simultaneously advanced, and 
Torbert's Cavalry, arriving at last after their 
I unaccountable delay upon our extreme right, made 
I a magnificent charge crumpling up all the enemy's 
I left. The victory was real, but not so complete 
as it should have been. Sheridan ought to have 
I captured or destroyed the whole of Early's army. 
] Instead, he had left them an open line of re- 
I treat. He took only five pieces of artillery, nine 
I battle-flags, and some twelve or fifteen hundred 
\ prisoners; and, to use his own words, "sent the 
Confederates whirling up the valley." 

In the recoil of Gordon's brilliant charge of six 

thousand about noon, we prisoners were swept 
2 17 



i8 Lights and Shadows 

along into Winchester, and then locked in the old 
Masonic Hall. The sociable guards took pains to 
v.,^ emphasize the statement that George Washing- 

ton, "glorious rebel" they called him, had presided 
as Grand Master in that very room! 

After several hours we heard a great noise in the 
streets. Looking out we saw men, women, children, 
moving rapidly hither and thither, the current for 
the most part setting toward the southwest. The 
din increased ; the panic became general ; the Union 
Army was advancing on Winchester! 

We were hustled into the street now filled with 
retreating hundreds, and were marched rapidly 
along the turnpike toward the setting sun. The 
road crowded with artillery, army wagons, com- 
mon carriages, all pouring along in the stampede; 
a formidable provost guard enclosing us prisoners 
in a sort of hollow column; cavalry in front, flank, 
and rear; the fields on either side swarming with 
infantry, the whole of Early's army in retreat, we 
apparently in the middle of it; Sheridan's guns 
still booming in our rear — such was the scene as 
we two or three hundred prisoners were driven 
on. Our mingled emotions can be better imagined 
than described. The bitter regret that we had 
not been slain; the consciousness that we had 
done our whole duty in facing unflinchingly the 



In Confederate Prisons 19 

storm of shot and shell, never retreating an inch; 
the evident respect and even courtesy with which 
I was personally treated; the inspiring certainty 
that our army was victorious, the unspeakable 
mortification of being ourselves prisoners of 
war! — we sorely needed all our philosophy and all 
our religion to sustain us. 

Marching moodily along I was aroused from a 
sort of reverie by an experience far too common 
in those days. I had been sick the night before, 
and had worn my overcoat into battle. My horse 
was shot. The blood was spurting from him. As 
he seemed likely to fall, I leaped down. We were 
in the midst of a rapid advance and I had not time 
to throw off my overcoat. I was now carrying 
it swung over my arm. It was growing dark. A 
mounted soldier, whom I took to be an officer, 
rode up to my side and seized hold of the coat. 
He said, "I want that overcoat." I replied, 
*'You can't have it." "I must have it." "You 
shan't have it." He tugged and I tugged, and as 
I was on foot and sober I nearly dragged him from 
his horse before he let go. During the tussle I 
repeatedly shouted, ''Captain of the Guard — 
Help! Help!" The provost captain instantly 
came riding to the spot. "What's the matter?" 
he asked. " That rascal has tried to rob me of my 



20 Lights and Shadows 

overcoat," I answered, pointing to the villain 
who was beginning to slink away. The captain 
appeared to recognize him, said not a word to him, 
but whispered to me a moment later, "You are 
entitled to keep your overcoat." 

We had had little breakfast and no dinner nor 
supper, but we suffered more from thirst than 
hunger. Can we ever forget it? Will the long 
flight never end? On through Kerrstown without 
halting we march, with promise of rest and water 
at Newtown; no rest nor water there. On from 
Newtown with assurance of water at Middletown. 
Five minutes at Middletown, and a Httle muddy 
water that seems to aggravate our thirst. Far- 
ther on we cross a bridge under which the water 
is dashing as if in mockery, and the cry "Water! 
water!" rises from a hundred lips, the guard join- 
ing, for they are suffering like ourselves. Some 
comfort in that! Past midnight we reach Stras- 
burg and are halted around an old wooden pump. 
It is broken ! No water there. Still on and on at 
a snail-pace, up and over the almost interminable 
stretch of Fisher's Hill. At three o'clock in the 
morning we arrive at a place known by the classi- 
cal name of Tom's Brook about twenty-five miles 
from Winchester. Never was nectar more delicious 
than the water of this stream, nor downy pillow 



In Confederate Prisons 21 

more welcome than the sod on its banks. With- 
out blankets or covering we sank in each other's 
arms for mutual warmth on the dew-drenched 
grass; and blistered feet and aching limbs and 
hunger and thirst and suffocating despair are all 
forgotten ! 

Morning came unnoticed, except by those whom 
the keen cold permitted to sleep no longer. To- 
wards noon we rose, washed without soap or towel, 
were made to form line, had our names taken, and 
received as rations a pint of flour per man, with a 
little salt, nothing else. How to cook or prepare 
the flour? We learned of the rebel guards a proc- 
ess not laid down in the cook-books. Mixing 
with water they made a stiff paste or dough. 
This they put around the end of a stick about the 
size and half the length of a walking cane. The 
end thus thickly coated they hold over a little fire 
till the smoke and flame have sufficiently hard- 
ened it. Then pull out your stick and you have 
a thick chunk or cylinder of bread, not quite so 
tough as a gun-barrel, but substantial! 

I contrived to keep a little memorandum book. 
In it I noted down that there were three hundred 
and eleven of us prisoners ; two lieutenant-colonels, 
two majors, four captains, nine lieutenants, and 
two hundred and ninety-four enlisted men. These 



^ 



22 Lights and Shadows 

were in the march from Winchester. A few may 

have been added to our number at Tom's Brook. 

I have stated how it happened that none of those 

near me were robbed when captured. Those at a 

distance were not so fortunate; for, if circumstances 

permitted, the Confederates, being themselves 

sadly in want, often improved the opportunity to 

grab every article of value. At Tom's Brook I 

noted in my diary the following: 

Major A. W. Wakefield, 49th Pa. Cav., was robbed 
of hat, blanket, and $100 in money. Adjt. J. A. 
Clark, 17th Pa. Cav., was robbed of cap, boots, mug, 
pocket-book and money. Lieut. Harrison, 2d Regular 
Cav., was robbed of gold watch and money. Capt. 
John R. Rouzer, 6th Md. Inf., was robbed by an 
officer of hat and $20 in money. Lieut. Wesley C. 
Howe, 2d Mass. Cav., who recently died at Kansas 
City, Mo., was robbed by Lieut. Housel of the 6th 
Va. Cav., of silver watch, spurs, gloves, and $10 in 
money. Major August Haurand, 4th N. Y. Cav., 
was robbed of a watch and $60 in money. 

It was a common practice to snatch from a Union 
prisoner his cap, and clap on in lieu of it a worn-out 
slouched hat; pull off his boots, and substitute a 
pair of clumsy old shoes. The plundering was so 
thoroughly done that it was poetically termed 
** going through" a captive! 

As I was the senior officer among the prisoners, 
and we seemed likely to remain a long time there, 



i 



In Confederate Prisons 33 

I went to the Confederate commander and be- 
sought him to allow our three hundred prisoners 
to occupy a bam near by. He refused. I then 
asked that we be allowed to build wigwams for 
shelter, as there was abundant material at hand. 
This too was not permitted. I also begged in 
vain that a surgeon should be got to dress the 
wounds of some of the prisoners. 

The second morning after our arrival, the sleep- 
ing men were aroused by the loud voice of 
Lieutenant Sargent of the 14th New Hampshire 
Regiment exclaiming: "If you give me any more 
of your lip, I'll annihilate you! I've but one 
arm" (his right arm was disabled by a shot), 
"but even with one arm I'll annihilate you on 
the spot, if you give me any more of your lip!" 
This was exceedingly gratifying, for it proved that 
at least two of us were not yet "annihilated!" 

During our sojourn at Tom's Brook the Confed- 
erates labored hard to induce us to exchange our 
greenbacks for their paper currency. Our own 
was sadly depreciated, one dollar of silver or gold 
being equal to two of greenbacks; but one in 
United States paper was equal in purchasing power 
to eight of theirs. They argued that our money 
would certainly be forcibly taken from us by 
rapacious guards farther south, and kindly offered 



24 Lights and Shadows 

us four for one. Sergeant Reed of the Provost 
Guard was quite a character. Like Gratiano 
in The Merchant of Venice, he talked loud and long, 
speaking ''an infinite deal of nothing. " He had a 
mania for watches. He told me he now had 
twenty-seven which he had obtained from Yankee 
prisoners, always paying them in good Confederate 
money. He set his heart upon a little silver watch 
of mine, which he said he wished to buy and 
present to one of his lady admirers. I asked: 

''Why do they admire you?" 

"Because of my bravery," he replied; "none 
but the brave deserve the fair." 

"If you are so brave, why are you back here? 
Why are you not at the front?" 

"Colonel, I've been in the forefront of the 
hottest battles. I've been fearfully wounded. 
I'll be hanged if I haven't been one of the bravest 
of the brave. Twice, Colonel, I was shot all into 
inch pieces; and so now I'm put on light duty!'* 

On Thursday, the third day after our arrival, 
two "india-rubber men," circus performers, of the 
22d Indiana Regiment, gave an exhibition of 
"ground and lofty tumbling" for the entertain- 
ment of their fellow prisoners. They had some- 
how contrived to retain the gaudy costume of the 
ring. They were really skillful. While we were 



In Confederate Prisons 25 

watching with interest the acrobatic performance, 
a squadron of the Confederate General Imboden's 
Cavalry dashed past us. Sergeant Reed, who had 
just made me an offer for my watch, sprang to 
his feet, exclaiming: "I swear! there must be a 
battle going on in front, for there goes Jimboden*s 
Cavalry to the rear! Sure sign! I'll be hanged 
if we ain't gettin' licked again!" We had heard 
the cannonading in the distance, but paid Httle 
attention to it. The Richmond papers, announc- 
ing that Fisher's Hill was impregnable to the 
whole Yankee army, were said to have been re- 
ceived about an hour before the heights were act- 
ually carried by storm. Again Early's army was 
not captured, but sent "whirling up the valley." 

We prisoners thoroughly enjoyed the changed 
aspect of affairs. At first they marched us directly 
back a short distance up the slope towards the 
advancing Yankees; but they seemed suddenly to 
discover their mistake; they halted, faced about, 
and marched down. Hilarious and saucy, our 
boys struck up the song and three hundred voices 
swelled the chorus: 

Rally round the flag, boys, rally once again, 
Shouting the battle-cry of Freedom — 

The Union forever! hurrah, boys, hurrah! 

Down with the traitor ! up with the star ! etc. 



26 Lights and Shadows 

till Captain Haslett of the provost guard came 
riding into the midst with savage oaths shouting, 
''Silence! silence! SILENCE!" 

Twenty-seven miles, first through stifling dust 
and then through pelting rain, past Hawkinstown, 
Woodstock, Edenburg, Mount Jackson, brought 
us to New Market. On the march Colonel Brinton 
of a Pennsylvania regiment, a new arrival, planned 
with me an escape. He had campaigned through 
the valley, was familiar with the lay of the land, 
and said he had friends among the inhabitants. 
Our plan was to run past the guards in the dark- 
ness. As a preliminary step I cut off my shoulder- 
straps which were very bright. Within half an 
hour Sergeant Reed came up to me and asked, 
"Colonel, Where's your shoulder-straps?" I re- 
plied, "I don't wear shoulder-straps now I'm a 
prisoner." "But, Colonel," he answered, "I've 
been lookin' at them shoulder-straps since we left 
Tom's Brook. I wanted to buy 'em of you for a 
present to one of my girls. I'll be hanged if I 
don't believe you're goin' to try to escape, and so 
you've cut off your bright shoulder-straps. But, 
Colonel, it's impossible. I'll be hanged if I hadn't 
rather lose any six of the others than to lose you." 
The fellow stuck closer to me than a brother all the 
rest of that night; so close that he lost sight of 



In Confederate Prisons 27 

Colonel Brinton, who actually escaped about mid- 
night at a place called Edenburg ! Almost imme- 
diately Sergeant Reed came to me and asked, 
* ' Colonel, Where's that other Colonel ? " I answered : 
^' You ought to know; I don't ! "— " I'll be hanged, " 
said he, "if I haven't lost him, a-watchin' you!" 

At New Market they put us into a dilapidated 
church building. ''The wicked flea, when no man 
pursueth but the righteous, is bold as a lion," was 
repeatedly misquoted from the Book of Proverbs ^ 
and not without reason. We concluded if that 
interpretation was correct, we had reason enough 
for obeying the injunction in Ecdesiastes, "Be not 
righteous overmuch"; for the little jumpers were 
fearless and countless. They were reinforced by a 
Confederate deacon, who recommended two things : 
Confederate paper and "gospel piety"; the one 
would carry us safely through this world ; the other 
through the next. He would be only too happy 
to furnish us the currency in exchange for our 
greenbacks. "Confederate treasury bills and true 
religion" was the burden of his song, till one of 
our literar}^ officers, it was said, squelched him: 
"Deacon, your recipe of happiness, rebel paper 
and godliness — Confederate money and a Chris- 
tian spirit! — reminds me of what Byron says in 
one of his wicked poems : 



2S Lights and Shadows 

'Beyond all doubt there's nought the spirit cheers 
Like rum and true religion!'" 

He subsided. 

We left New Market at noon, Saturday, Septem- 
ber 24th, and marched all the afternoon and all 
night, past Harrisonburg, Mount Crawford, Mount 
Sidney, and Willow Springs, reaching Staunton, Va., 
about nine in the morning. On the march, forty- 
three miles in twenty-one hours, we were hungry; 
for the morning ration at New Market was scanty, 
and they gave us nothing more, except a small 
loaf of wheat bread. Some of the guard were kind 
to us. One of them, private John Crew, Co. E, 
nth Alabama Regiment, unsolicited by us, and, 
so far as I am aware, without hope of any reward, 
would endeavor to bring us apples or other food, 
whenever we halted. I was careful to write his 
name in my diary. 

As we trudged along, a lively discussion of 
slavery ensued. Lieutenant Howard of the provost 
guard was a learned champion of the "peculiar 
institution," and I was a pronounced abolitionist. 
He was an ardent "fire-eater," to use the term 
then in vogue, and I, who had lost my position 
as principal of the Worcester High School by 
my defense of John Brown, was equally intense. 
Both were pretty well "posted" on the subject. 



In Confederate Prisons 29 

He seemed to be familiar with the Bible and the 
proslavery arguments, including drunken Noah's 
"Cursed Canaan!" Moses Stuart's Conscience and 
the Constitution, Nehemiah Adams's Southside View 
of Slavery, and Rev. Dr. — (the name is gone from 
me) of Baltimore's Sermons. I was fresh from 
reading the arguments of George B. Cheever, 
Horace Bushnell, Henry Ward Beecher, Garrison, 
Phillips, and the rest. He proved that slavery 
among the Hebrews was a divine institution. I 
answered they were commanded to "undo the 
heavy burdens, let the oppressed go free, and break 
every yoke." He said Paul sent back the fugitive 
slave Onesimus to his master Philemon; I re- 
joined, "Paul said, *I send him back, not as a 
servant, but above a servant, a brother beloved; 
receive him as myself.' " He quoted the Constitu- 
tion of the United States, the article commanding 
that fugitive slaves should be delivered back to 
their masters ; in reply I quoted from Deuteronomy 
the "Higher Law," "Thou shalt not deliver unto 
his master the servant which is escaped from 
his master unto thee." He quoted from the 
great speech of the magnificent Webster in the 
Senate, March 7, 1850, in which he urged all 
good citizens to obey the Fugitive Slave Law "with 
alacrity." Waxing hot, I quoted from Beecher: 



30 Lights and Shadows 

As to those provisions which concern aid to fugitive 
slaves, may God do so to us, yea and more also, if we 
do not spurn them as we would any other mandate of 
Satan! If in God's providence fugitives ask bread 
or shelter, raiment or conveyance at my hands, my 
own children shall lack bread ere they; my own flesh 
shall sting with cold ere they shall lack raiment. And 
whatsoever defense I would put forth for mine own 
children, that shall these poor, despised, persecuted 
creatures have at my hands and on the road. The 
man that would do otherwise, that would obey this 
law to the peril of his soul and the loss of his man- 
hood, were he brother, son, or father, shall never 
pollute my hand with grasp of hideous friendship, 
nor cast his swarthy shadow athwart my threshold ! 

The lieutenant finally cited the examples of 
''those glorious southern patriots who led the re- 
bellion against England during the first American 
Confederacy," Washington, Patrick Henry, Madi- 
son, Jefferson, "every one a slaveholder," he 
proudly exclaimed. I happened to be cognizant of 
their views, and responded with some vehemence: 
"But Washington's hands were tied so that he 
could not free slaves till his death. He said 
it was among his first wishes to see some plan 
adopted for putting an end to slavery. Patrick 
Henry declared, *I will not, I cannot justify it.* 
Madison expressed strongly his unwillingness to 
admit in the national Constitution ' the idea that 



In Confederate Prisons 31 

can hold property in man.'" In a rather loud 
voice I quoted Jefferson, who, in view of our 
inconsistency in violating the "self-evident truth" 
that "all men are created equal," solemnly af- 
firmed, "/ tremble for my country^ when I remem- 
ber that God is just, and that his justice cannot sleep 
j or ever!''' I had some reputation as an elocutionist 
in those days, and Sergeant Reed, who was listen- 
ing with open mouth, broke in with, "I'll be 
hanged. Colonel, if you warn't cut out for a preach- 
er! By — I should like to hear you preach." 
The best reply I could make was: "You'll un- 
doubtedly be hanged sometime; and if I were a 
minister, nothing would give me more satisfac- 
tion than to be present at your execution and 
preach your funeral sermon. " He repHed: " Now, 
Colonel, you don't mean that. You don't think 
I'll ever be hanged!" — "Indeed I do, if you don't 
stop your profanity and general cussedness. " — 
" I'll be hanged, if I will, " was his last word to me. 



CHAPTER III 



At Staunton — Thence to Waynesboro, Meacham's, and 
Richmond. 



At Staunton we got a little more light on the 
value of Confederate paper. A chivalrous surgeon 
who accompanied the provost guard (Fontleroy, 
I think, was his name') politely invited Captain 
Dickerman of the 26th Massachusetts and myself 
to take breakfast with him in a restaurant. We 
needed no urging. The Provost Marshal gave 
consent. The saloon was kept by a negro named 
Jackson. His entire stock of provisions consisted 
of nine eggs, the toughest kind of neck beef, bread 
and salt, coffee very weak, butter very strong. As 
we sat waiting, the doctor remarked with a lordly 
air that under ordinary circumstances he would not 
deign to eat with Yankees. I answered good- 
naturedly: "I'm as much ashamed as you can be; 
and if you'll never tell of it, I won't!" The food, 



^ Dr. Fontleroy was a brother of Mrs. Major Whittlesey, one 
of my fellow professors, instructor in military tactics, at Cornell 
University. Whittlesey was a graduate of West Point, and, 
while there, had had cadet U. S. Grant under his command! 

32 



i 



In Confederate Prisons 33 

notwithstanding its toughness, rapidly disappeared. 
Near the last mouthful the doctor said: "You two 
will have to pay for this breakfast, for IVe no 
money." I had fifteen Confederate dollars re- 
maining of twenty which I had received for a five- 
dollar greenback at Tom's Brook, and I answered: 
*'Give yourself no anxiety; I'll foot the bill." — 
''Well, Jackson," said I to the sable proprietor, 
*' what's the damage?" He replied, "I shan't 
charge you-ones full price. Let's see ! Beef, seven ; 
eggs, two — nine; coffee, three — twelve; bread and 
butter, three — fifteen; three of you — forty-five. 
I'll call it only thirty-six dollars!" I paid my 
fifteen; Captain Dickerman pleaded poverty; and 
the dignified doctor, who had so cordially invited 
us to partake of his hospitality, promised the 
disappointed Jackson that he would pay the bal- 
ance at some future day ("the futurest kind of a 
day," was added in an undertone). 

Rejoining the three or four hundred prisoners, 
we found, besides the Confederate guards, a great 
crowd of spectators swarming aroimd us. One 
of them, a fine-looking young man, wearing the 
blue uniform of a United States captain, made 
his way through the group, and handed me a 
twenty-dollar Confederate bill! The following 
dialogue ensued: 



34 Lights and Shadows 

"Here, Colonel, take that.** 

" I thank you much. Who are you, so kind to a 
stranger and an enemy?" 

"I'm one whom you Yanks would hang, if you 
could catch me." 

"Why so? Who are you?" 

"I'm one of Morgan's guerrillas; wouldn't you 
hang me?" 

"I think I should, if you had much of this stuff 
about you" (holding up the twenty-dollar bill); 
"I've just paid fifteen Confederate dollars for an 
imaginary breakfast." 

"Good for you, Colonel. Here, take another 
twenty. Now you've forty. That'll pay for an 
imaginary dinner. Good-bye, Colonel! I have 
an engagement — to meet some of your cavalry. 
Remember, Morgan's guerrillas are not rascals, 
but gentlemen. Good-bye!" He vanished. 

About noon those of us who appeared unable to 
march farther were put on top of freight cars, and 
carried about a dozen miles east to Waynesboro. 
Here the railway crosses a stream, which encircles 
a little island just north of the bridge. The 
majority had to walk. At dusk that Sunday 
evening all had come. They put us on the island 
carefully guarded on all sides. Never was I more 
thankful. I had had something good to eat at 



In Confederate Prisons 35 

Staunton ; had got rested riding on the roof of the 
car; and I had my overcoat. Davy Crockett 
preferred a heap of chestnut burs for a pillow; 
but I followed the patriarch's example and chose a 
flat stone. People never allowed me to sing; but 
I dropped asleep repeating the stanza in Mrs. 
Adams's exquisite hymn. 

Though, like the wanderer, 
The sun gone down. 
Darkness be over me. 

My rest a stone, 
Yet in my dreams I'd be 
Nearer, my God, to thee! 

Towards midnight the cold became so keen that I 
rose and went to the side of a flickering fire. Here 
excessive misery was for a moment hardening the 
hearts it should have softened. Several prisoners 
were quarreling for a position nearest the embers, 
each angrily claiming that he had brought the 
fagots that were burning! Two or three hours 
later several of us attempted to slip past the 
sentries in the darkness, but were stopped before 
we reached the water. . 

At earliest streak of dawn we were marched 
away. About two miles brought us to the Blue 
Ridge where the railroad tunnel pierces its found- 



36 Lights and Shadows 

ations. We toiled up and on in time to see the sun 
rise. An ocean of fog lay around us. Never shall 
we forget how royally the King of Day scaled the 
great wall that seemed to hem in on every side the 
wide valley, and how the sea of mist and cloud visi- 
bly fled before the inrolHng flood of light, unveiling 
green and yellow fields, flocks and herds, dark wood- 
lands, dwellings yet asleep in peace and plenty, 
here and there the silver thread of a winding 
stream with lakes that mirrored the sky, and 
yonder the long stretches of those titanic fortifi- 
cations encompassing all. We were reminded 
of Shakespeare's sunrise: 

Full many a glorious morning have I seen 
Flatter the mountain tops with sovereign eye, 
Kissing with golden face the meadows green. 
Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchemy. 

At that instant a train of cars from Charlottes- 
ville came sliding along, and shot 

Into the tunnel, like a lightning wedge 

By great Thor hammers driven through the rock ! 

The scene startled us by its sublimity, and for a 
few minutes the hungry forgot their craving, 
the footsore their pain, the hopeless their de- 
spair. 
That day's march, though not so long was as 



In Confederate Prisons 37 

severe as any; we were exhausted. Private Dolan, 
Co. K, 159th N. Y., was barefoot. His feet were 
blistered and bleeding. I begged the commander of 
the provost guard, Captain Haslett, to allow him 
to get into an ambulance. My request was not 
granted. But we soon afterwards passed a large 
mansion in front of which were several girls and 
women apparently making fun of the unwashed 
*'Yank" and evidently enjoying the spectacle. 
We were halted just as Dolan came limping along 
supported on one side by a stronger comrade. 
They saw his miserable plight, his distress, his 
swollen feet, and they heard of the stem com- 
mand to shoot any prisoner who fell out or lagged 
behind. Their faces changed. With tears one 
or two implored the Captain to let him ride in 
the ambulance. He yielded to their entreaties. 
Southern ladies almost always seemed handsome to 
us, but these in my memory have the fairest faces. 
I thought of Lady Clare in Marmion, and the 
words still recur : 

O Woman! in our hours of ease, 
Uncertain, coy, and hard to please, 
And variable as the shade 
By the light quivering aspen made; 
When pain and anguish wring the brow. 
A ministering angel thou! 



38 Lights and Shadows 

Two miles before we reached our temporary 
destination, Meacham's Station, my own strength 
utterly failed. I had borne up so long, partly 
to set an example of cheerful endurance, and 
partly from something like Mark Tapley's pride 
at coming out strong and jolly under the most 
depressing circumstances. I lay beside the road, 
remarking to Captain Haslet t, who immediately 
came riding to the spot, ''Captain, here's a fine 
chance to try your marksmanship; I can't march 
any further; shan't try to." — "Colonel," he 
replied with something of pity in his tone and 
manner, "I'm sorry to see you so used up. I'm 
sorry to be obliged to march you prisoners so hard. 
I have to keep out of the way of your damned 
cavalry. You may get into the ambulance." 
So into the ambulance I climbed with some diffi- 
culty, and immediately commenced my free- 
masonry on the driver. He responded to the signs. 
He proved to be an acquaintance of the Redwoods, 
a family in Mobile, one of whom had been a class- 
mate of mine at Yale. He gave me some nice 
milk and some fine wheat bread. "As a Mason, " 
said he, "I'll feed you; share the last crumb with 
you; but as a Confederate soldier I'll fight you till 
the last drop of blood and the last ditch." — "I 
hardly know which to admire most, your spunk 



In Confederate Prisons 39 

or your milk/' I replied. Thereupon he gave me 
another drink, and insisted on my imbibing a little 
of what he called ''apple-jack." I was a ''tee- 
totaler"; but thinking the occasion warranted, 
I "smiled" upon it, "strictly as a medicine!" 
"Apple-jack" seemed to me the same thing as 
"Jersey lightning." He became quite friendly, 
but was horribly profane. "Look here, " said he, 
"you seem to be a sort of Christian ; cuss me if you 
don't! What in h — 1 are you Yanks all comin' 
down here for?" — "You have a gift at swearing," 
I said; "did you, among your other oaths, ever 
swear to support the Constitution of the United 
States?"— "Well, yes."— "That's what's the 
matter with us," I said, "we're keeping our oaths 
and you are breaking yours." — "To h — 1 with the 
Constitution of the United States ! Our first duty 
is to our own State. We've a right to be an 
independent nation, and we will. I'm a guerrilla. 
If our armies are defeated, I'll fight you on my own 
hook. I'll fire on you from behind every tree 
and every rock. I'll assassinate every invader. I 
want you to remember that I'm a guerrilla." — "I 
like your spirits, " I said. "They are worthy of a 
better cause." — "Take another swallow of 'em," 
he replied, handing me the canteen. I toasted 
him: "Here's hoping you gorillas will outlive the 



40 Lights and Shadows 

Southern Confederacy!'* — "A d — d equivocal 
sentiment," observed my fire-eating, fire-drinking 
Masonic brother; "but here we are at Meacham's 
Station. Good-bye, Yank!'' 

After our nineteen miles' march it was a most 
welcome relief to be placed on platform cars, 
though packed so closely that we could hardly stir. 
We objected that the cars had no tops. "All 
the better opportunity to study astronomy," 
they replied. — "The cars have no sides to keep 
off the wind. " — "The scenery is magnificent," they 
rejoined, "and they'll answer for 'observation 
cars'; you have an unobstructed view." — "But 
the nights are growing cold." — "You'll keep warm 
by contact with each other." Mad at this 
mockery, hungry, half-frozen, squeezed like fish 
in a basket, we took little note of scenery or stars; 
but it was a comfort to believe that our discomfort 
was caused by the rapid advance of Sheridan's 
cavalry. 

More dead than alive, though hardly dead 
enough to bury, having been jolted along all the 
afternoon and all night, we reached Richmond 
about sunrise, Tuesday, September 27th. Number- 
ing now nearly four hundred we were escorted 
through the streets to the notorious Libby prison 
and halted in front. The Union officers inside 



In Confederate Prisons 41 

thronged the windows to see us come. On every 
face was a sad, despondent, pitying look, the most 
discouraging sight I ever saw. No smiles there 
nor among us. Conspicuous among them was the 
sorrowful countenance of Lieut.-Col. Charles H. 
Hooper of the 24th Massachusetts Infantry, with 
his long handsome auburn beard. Some one inside 
whispered loud enough for several of our ''Four 
Hundred " to hear, '' Hide your greenbacks ! " We 
passed the word down the column, ''Hide your 
greenbacks!" 

A few minutes revealed its significance. We 
were taken in a body in upon the lower floor. 
There Major Nat. Turner, prison inspector, 
cousin of the celebrated Dick Turner of unlovely 
reputation, made us a speech. 

You will empty your pockets of all valuables. Such 
as are not contraband of war, you will be allowed to 
retain. You will deliver up all your Federal money. 
An equivalent amount in Confederate money will be 
given you in instalments from time to time, or the 
whole will be returned to you when you are exchanged. 
You will turn pockets inside out. If you attempt 
to conceal anything, it will be confiscated 

We were made to step forward singly, and were 
searched. Our coats and vests were taken off, 
also our boots and shoes ; and a Confederate officer 



42 In Confederate Prisons 

felt very carefully of all our clothing to make sure 
that nothing was hidden. I ''remembered to for- 
get" that I had two ten-dollar greenbacks com- 
pressed into a little wad in one comer of my watch 
fob; and that comer escaped inspection. Dick 
Turpin never was the richer for that money. 
They examined suspiciously a pocket edition of 
the New Testament in the original Greek; but I 
assured them it was not some diabolical Yankee 
cipher, and they allowed me to keep it. I made 
the most of my freemasonry, and they permitted 
me to retain my overcoat. One of our prisoners, 
it was whispered, had secretly stuffed $1300 in 
greenbacks into his canteen, but all canteens were 
taken from us as contraband of war, and nobody 
but ''Uncle Sam" profited by the concealment. 
Having "gone through" us, they incarcerated 
the officers in one room, the enlisted men in 
another. 



CHAPTER IV 

At Libby — Thence to Clover, Danville, Greensboro, and Salis- 
bury — Effort to Pledge us not to Attempt Escape. 

The two rooms at Libby adjoined each other 
on the second floor, but a solid brick wall was 
between them. When we entered, about a hun- 
dred and fifty officers were already there. The 
first thing that attracted my attention was an 
officer putting a loaf of bread through a small 
hole in the partition where one or two bricks 
were removable. He was feeding a hungry 
prisoner. A cap or hat nicely concealed the 
perforation. 

Libby has a hard name, but it was the most 
comfortable of the six Confederate prisons of 
which I saw the interior. With all his alleged 
brutal severity, of which I saw no manifestation, 
and his ravenous appetite for greenbacks, for 
which we could not blame him, Dick Turner 
seemed an excellent disciplinarian. Everything 
went like clockwork. We knew what to expect 
or rather what not to expect, and when! My 

43 



44 Lights and Shadows 

diary for Wednesday, September 28, 1864, the 
day after our arrival, reads as follows: 

The issue to us daily is 

One gill of boiled beans, 
One quarter gill of bean broth, 
One half loaf of soft bread, 
(Four ounces meat) and 
A Httle salt. 

There was one inestimable boon, a copious 
supply of pure water. 

There were at this time no panes of glass, in 
fact no sashes, in the windows, and the wind swept 
freely through. The nights were becoming cold. 
Confederate sentries were on the lower floor and 
outside. They kept up a custom rather unusual, 
I think, during the war, of calling out in sing-song 
tones every hour the number of the post and the 
time, with occasional variations; e. g.: "Post 
number fourteen, two o'clock, and all's well." 
Then the next sentinel would sing out, "Post num- 
ber fifteen, two o'clock, and all's well." Then the 
melodious voice of the next, farther away and 
sadly unorthodox, "Post number sixteen, two 
o'clock, and cold as h — 1!" 

Except one or two rickety tables and two or 
three old chairs, there was no furniture in the 
prison. Some of the officers had contrived to save 



In Confederate Prisons 45 

a little money when searched, and with money it 
was possible to procure small articles slyly smuggled 
in contrary to orders; but most of us were dis- 
posed to sing with old Isaac Watts, 

Dear Lord, and shall we ever live 
At this poor dying rate? 

From the rear windows we were occasionally 
entertained with the sight of exploding shells, 
which the indefatigable Grant was daily projecting 
towards Richmond. Particularly was this the 
case on the thirtieth of the month, when the boys 
in blue captured Fort Harrison, and the next day 
when the Confederates made several gallant but 
unsuccessful attempts to retake it. At such times 
we could see some of the steeples or high roofs in 
Richmond thronged with non-combatants gazing 
anxiously towards Petersburg. The belief that 
our prison was undermined, a vast quantity of 
gunpowder stored in the cellar, and that Dick 
Turner had threatened and was desperate enough 
to blow us all into eternity in case of a sudden dash 
of our cavalry into Richmond, somewhat marred 
the satisfaction with which we contemplated the 
evident progress of the siege. We could sym- 
pathize with the Philadelphia Friend, who said 
to his wife on the introduction of gun-cotton, 



46 Lights and Shadows 

"What comfort can thee take, even when sitting 
in thy easy chair, when thee knows not but the 
very cushion underneath thee is an enormous 
bomb-shell, ready upon the slightest concussion 
to blow thee to everlasting glory?" 

At three o'clock, Sunday morning, October 2d, 
we were roused by the entry of armed men with 
lanterns. They furnished each of us with a dirty 
haversack containing what they called two days* 
rations of corn bread and meat. Then they moved 
us single-file down stairs. As we passed, they 
took from each his blanket, even those the officers 
had just bought and paid for. If we expostulated, 
we were told we were going to a place where we 
should not need blankets! For my freemasonry 
or some other unexpressed reason, they allowed 
me to pass, wearing my overcoat. Then they took 
us by bridge across the James River, packed us in 
box-cars on the railway, forty to sixty in each car, 
and started the train southwest towards Danville. 

The road-bed was bad and the fences on either 
side were gone. We made but four or five miles 
an hour. One of our officers declared that they 
kept a boy running ahead of the engine with ham- 
mer and nails to repair the track! also that they 
put the cow-catcher on behind the last car to pre- 
vent cattle from running over the train ! At nine 



In Confederate Prisons 47 

o'clock in the evening we reached a place called 
Clover. We passed the night in Clover! on the 
bank beside the railroad, where we studied 
astronomy! and meditated! 

Next morning they repacked us, and we were 
transported seventy miles farther to Danville. 
My memorandum book mentions a conversation I 
had on the way with a very young and handsome 
rebel, one of the guard. He was evidently in- 
genuous and sincere, pious and lovable. After a 
few pleasant remarks he suddenly asked : 

"What are you Northerners fighting for?" 
"In defense of the Constitution and the Union. 
What are you fighting for?" 

"Every right that is sacred and dear to man." 
"What right that is sacred and dear to man had 
the United States ever violated before you fired 
on Fort Sumter?" 

Of course he fell back on the Declaration of 
American Independence, that "Governments de- 
rive their just powers from the consent of the 
governed"; also on the doctrine so emphatically 
expressed by Abraham Lincoln in his speech in 
Congress in 1846; viz.: 

Any people anywhere, being inclined and having 
the power, have the right to raise up and shake off 
the existing government, and form a new one that 



48 Lights and Shadows 

suits them better. This is a most valuable, a most 
sacred right, a right which we hope and believe is to 
liberate the world. Nor is this right confined to cases 
in which the whole people of an existing government 
may choose to exercise it. Any portion of such people, 
that can, may revolutionize and make their own of as 
much territory as they inhabit. 

We arrived at Danville at noon. A heavy rain 
began to fall. Having been two days without 
opportunity to wash, we were drenched for an hour 
or two by the sweet shower that seemed to pour 
from the open windows of heaven. When our 
thoughtful guards concluded that we were suffi- 
ciently cleansed and bleached, they sheltered us 
by putting us into coal cars, where the black dust 
was an inch deep. That dust was fine! but the 
thought seemed to strike them that our nicely 
laundered garments might get soiled. So in half 
an hour they took us out and placed us in corn 
cars. It rather went against the grain, but finally 
I sat down with the other kernels on the floor. 
The weather being inclement, they felt it their 
duty to keep us in doors, lest we should catch 
cold! 

In these elegant and commodious vehicles we 
were transported next day till we reached Greens- 
boro, North Carolina, about fifty miles southwest 



In Confederate Prisons 49 

from Danville. Disgorged like poor old Jonah after 
three days' living burial, we were placed in the 
beautiful open square, and never before did air, 
earth, trees, and skies seem lovelier. Here they 
gave each of us three horny crackers, ''rebel hard- 
tack, " out of which some of us carved finger rings 
that might have passed for bone. 

In those days I was too much addicted to mak- 
ing public speeches, a habit which I had contracted 
in Yale College. On the edge of the public green, 
backed by a hundred prisoners, I was haranguing 
a crowd of curious spectators, telling them how 
abominably we were treated, exhibiting to them 
our single ration of flinty biscuit, and consigning 
them all to everlasting perdition, when a well- 
dressed young man elbowed his way to me at the 
fence. He had a large black shiny haversack 
swung under his left arm. Patting it with his 
right hand, he asked: 

"Will you have a snack?'' 

"A what?" I answered. 

"A snack, a snack," he said. 

"I don't know what a 'snack' is, unless it's a 
snake. Yes, I think I could eat a copperhead — 
cooked. Snake for one, if you please; well done.'* 

He thrust his hand into his haversack; took out 
and gave me the most deHcious sandwich I ever 



50 Lights and Shadows 

tasted. Seeing how I enjoyed it, he emptied 
the satchel, giving all his food to my hungry fellow 
prisoners. He told me he was just starting on a 
long journey, and had laid in a good stock of 
provisions. I took pains to write in my journal 
his name and residence — "George W. Swepson, 
Alamance, North Carolina. Lives near the Court 
House." To which I added " F^V et Amicus.'' — 
"The blessing of him that was ready to perish" 
was upon George W. Swepson. 

That night we slept again on the ground and 
without covering under the open sky; and again 
several prisoners, Captain Howe and myself among 
them, attempted in vain to slip past the sentinels. 

Next morning we reentered the freight cars. 
A twelve hours' ride brought us at nine o'clock, 
Wednesday evening, October 5th, to our destina- 
tion, Salisbury, North Carolina. As the "Four 
Hundred" passed into the dark enclosure, we were 
greeted with the cry, "Fresh fish! Fresh fish!" 
which in those days announced the arrival of a 
new lot of prisoners. We field officers were 
quartered that night in a brick building near the 
entrance, where we passed an hour of horrors. 
We were attacked by what appeared to be an 
organized gang of desperadoes, made up of thieves, 
robbers, Yankee deserters, rebel deserters, and 



In Confederate Prisons 51 

villains generally, maddened by hunger, or bent on 
plunder, who rejoiced in the euphonious appel- 
lation of Muggers! We had been warned against 
them by kindly disposed guards, and were not 
wholly unprepared. They attacked us with clubs, 
fists, and knives, but were repeatedly driven off, 
pitched headlong downstairs. ' ' Muggers ! ' ' 

Salisbury prison, then commonly called "Salis- 
bury penitentiary," was in the general form of a 
right-angled triangle with base of thirty or forty 
rods, perpendicular eighty or ninety. In a row 
parallel to the base and four or five rods from it 
were four empty log houses with a space of about 
four rods between each two. These, a story and 
a half high, had formerly been negro quarters. 
On each side of the great triangle was a stout 
tight board fence twelve or fifteen feet high. 
Some two or three feet from the top of this, but 
out of our sight because on the other side, there 
was evidently a board walk, on which sentinels, 
four or ^YQ rods apart, perpetually paced their 
beats, each being able to see the whole inside of 
the enclosure. At each angle of the base was a 
shotted field-piece pointing through the narrow 
opening. We could see that behind each cannon 
there was a number of muskets stacked and vigi- 
lant soldiers watching every movement inside. 



52 Lights and Shadows 

Close to the fence outside there were three camps 
of Confederates, variously estimated to contain 
from seven hundred to two thousand in all. 

The number of Union officers in prison after our 
arrival was about three hundred and twenty; the 
number of non-commissioned officers and pri- 
vates was suddenly increased from about two 
thousand to some eight thousand. Among these 
were non-combatants, refugees, lighthouse keepers, 
and other government employees. Albert D. 
Richardson, then well-known as a correspondent 
of the New York Tribune, whose romantic mar- 
riage to Abby Sage by Henry Ward Beecher and 
whose tragic death created a sensation in the 
newspaper world, had been held as a prisoner 
there for several months. He told us he had 
found Salisbury a comfortable place. It immedi- 
ately ceased to be such. 

There stood the empty log houses. We be- 
sought the rebel commandant. Major Gee, to allow 
us officers to occupy those buildings. He said he 
would permit it on condition that we should sign 
a stringent parole, binding us on our honor not 
to attempt to escape! We objected to it as a 
preposterous requirement that, remaining under 
strict guard and wholly cut off from communi- 
cation with the outside world, we should sign such 



In Confederate Prisons 53 

a pledge as the only condition on which we could 
receive decent shelter. I asked Major Gee if the 
rigor of our confinement would be in any way 
relaxed. He answered bluntly, ''No." — "Well, 
where 's the reciprocity?" I demanded; "what 
are you giving up?" — "Well," he replied, "if 
you don*t choose to sign the parole, you can't 
have the buildings. Other Federal ofiicers have 
not objected to signing it." He showed us the 
signature of Gen. Michael Corcoran, who had 
been colonel of the 69th New York, was cap- 
tured at the first battle of Bull Run, was 
promoted to be brigadier, and who raised the 
so-called "Corcoran Legion." Our senior officer, 
Brig.-Gen. Joseph Hayes of the Fifth Corps, 
now called a meeting of the field officers, and 
submitted the question, "Shall we sign the parole, 
and so obtain shelter? Or shall we hold ourselves 
free to escape if we can, and so share the privations 
of our enlisted men, who have no bed but the 
ground and no covering but the sky?" I spoke 
strongly against making any promise. We voted 
almost unanimously against it. 

General Hayes and others then urged upon the 
commandant the absurdity and meanness of 
requiring it. It was clear to us and must have 
been so to him that it was for his interest to 



54 Lights and Shadows 

separate the three or four hundred officers from 
the thousands of prisoners accustomed to obey 
our orders. He finally consented that we should 
occupy the houses without imposing any con- 
ditions. 

Parallel to the front of these buildings, about 
five rods from them and extending across the 
enclosure, was a so-called "dead line," on which 
nine sentinels paced their beats. Another ''dead 
line" about four rods from the high fence paral- 
leled the whole length of each side of the prison. 
It was death to come near these. 

About eighty officers were assigned to each of the 
four houses. In each an officer was elected to serve 
as house-commissary. His duty was to receive the 
rations from Lieutenant-Colonel Hooper, already 
mentioned, acting as commissary-general, to whom 
the Confederate authorities delivered them in 
bulk. The house-commissary distributed the food 
and acted as agent representing the house in all 
communications with Confederate headquarters. 
Col. Gilbert G. Prey of the 104th N. Y. Vols, 
was elected commissary of house number one; 
Capt. D. Tarbell, of Groton, N. Y., commissary 
of house number two; Lieutenant Reilly of 
Philadelphia, of house number three; and I of 
house four. 



In Confederate Prisons 55 

Each house contained but two rooms, a lower 
and an upper, both empty, for the most part with- 
out glass windows or even sashes; the spaces 
between the crooked logs not stopped up ; a single 
fireplace in each house, but not half enough wood 
to keep a blaze; without tables, benches, or chairs; 
without cooking utensils ; without table, knife, fork, 
spoon, or plate; often without cup or dish; without 
blankets, or any clothing but the scantiest sum- 
mer outfit; without books or papers; without 
water sufficient for washing, or soap, if we could 
possibly get water; we were in a sorry plight as 
the nights grew colder. And if the prospect was 
bad for us, how much worse for our soldiers across 
the "dead line," who had no shelter, hardly a 
scrap of blanket! Every rain made their beds 
a pool or mass of mire. It is not pleasant, but it 
is a duty to record some of the shadows of our 
prison life, "lest we forget. " 

On the open ground outside of what was called 
the "hospital," October 8th, a sergeant-major 
was found dead; October 9th, two private sol- 
diers; October 13th, five; October 14th, two; 
October i6th, eleven; October 17th, seven; October 
1 8th, nine. We could tell how severe the weather 
had been at night by the number found dead in 
the morning. 



56 Lights and Shadows 

Not far from the prison enclosure was an 
abundance of growing timber. More than once 
I besought Major Gee to allow our men to go, 
under guard on parole, to get wood for fires and 
for barracks. He refused. He said he was 
intending to build barracks for the prisoners as 
soon as he could procure lumber. I presume that 
he was sincere in this. I asked in vain for blankets 
for the men; for tents, but none came till De- 
cember, and then but one "Sibley" tent and one 
"A" tent per hundred prisoners, not enough for 
one-third of them. 

We procured water from a deep well on the 
grounds. The supply was so scanty for the 
thousands of prisoners that it was always exhausted 
before sunrise. Soon after we came the Confeder- 
ates commenced digging two new wells. At their 
rate of progress we reckoned it would take several 
months to finish either. 

My memorandum book shows that the issue 
of food daily at Salisbury, though sometimes 
partly withheld, was for each prisoner "one half 
loaf of soft bread; two, three, four, or five ounces 
of meat; a gill of boiled rice, and a little salt." I 
have no doubt that Major Gee meant to deal 
fairly with us ; but he was unprepared for the ava- 
lanche that had descended upon him. We are too 



In Confederate Prisons 57 

much in the habit of blaming individual com- 
batants for severities and cruelties that are inher- 
ent in the whole business of war, either civil or 
international, and inseparable from it. Said our 
Lieut. -Gen. S. M. B. Young at a banquet in 
Philadelphia, "War is necessarily cruel;, it is 
kill and bum, and bum and kill, and again 
kill and bum." The truth was more bluntly- 
expressed by the British Rear- Admiral Lord 
Fisher, now the first sea lord of the British 
Admiralty: 

Humanizing war? [said he]; you might as well talk 
of humanizing hell ! When a silly ass got up at the 
first Hague Peace Conference in 1899, and talked 
about the "amenities of warfare " and putting your 
prisoners' feet in warm water and giving them gruel, 
my reply, I regret to say, was considered brutally 
unfit for publication. As if war could be ** civilized" ! 
If I am in command when war breaks out, I shall 
issue as my orders, ** The essence of war is violence. 
Moderation is imbecility. Hit first, hit hard, hit 
everywhere y 

In this light we may view more charitably the 
slaying, on the i6th of October at Salisbury, of 
Second Lieutenant John Davis of the 155th N. Y. 
It was a Sunday morning about half-past ten 
o*clock. One of our fellow prisoners, Rev. Mr. 
Emerson, chaplain of a Vermont regiment, had 



58 Lights and Shadows 

circulated notice that he would conduct religious 
services in the open air between houses number 
three and four. The officers were beginning to as- 
semble when the sharp report of a musket near by- 
was heard. Rushing to the spot, we found the lieu- 
tenant lying on his back dying at the "dead line. " 
The sentinel on the fence, a mere boy, had fired 
upon him, and was now reloading. One of our 
number, Captain William Cook, unable to restrain 
his anger, hurled a large stone at him. But the 
hundreds of Confederates in the camps just beyond 
the fence had sprung to arms at the sound of the 
firing; the top of the fence was being lined with 
soldiers ; and the vigilant cannoneers at the angles 
were training their artillery upon our dense mass 
of officers. We prisoners regarded the shooting 
as a brutal murder. The religious exercises were 
turned into a funeral service. Chaplain Emerson 
prayed, " O God ! our only refuge in this dark hour, 
avenge the atrocious murder of our beloved com- 
rade; protect that widow so cruelly robbed of one 
dearer to her than life; and especially grant that 
this accursed Confederacy may speedily sink into 
its native hell ! " His text was from Isaiah viii, 12 : 
"Say ye not a Confederacy!" Next day I asked 
the officer of the guard if any punishment was 
to be inflicted upon the sentinel. He answered; 



In Confederate Prisons 59 

*'No; we don*t punish men for doing their 
duty." 

So vitally important is the point of view in 
deciding upon the right or wrong of an act. 



CHAPTER V 

At Salisbury — Great Plot to Escape — How Frustrated. 

When we arrived at Salisbury early in October, 

we found there a brave and sagacious officer, 

Lieut. Wm. C. Manning of the 26. Massachusetts 

Cavalry. He told us he had been held as a 

hostage in solitary confinement, and would have 

starved but for the rats he caught and ate. He 

had been notified that his own life depended upon 

the fate of a person held in federal hands as a spy. 

He determined to attempt an escape. He was 

assigned to my house. Taking up a part of the 

floor, he commenced digging a tunnel. He wrote 

a solemn pledge which all the officers in the house 

signed, binding them not to divulge the scheme. 

The tunnel would have had to be about eight rods 

long, and its outlet would necessarily have been 

near a group of rebel tents. Of course it would 

have been discovered on the morning after its 

completion, and not all could hope to find egress 

that way. But he believed that his life was still 

60 



In Confederate Prisons 6i 

in special danger, and he at once began excavating. 
The house had no cellar, but there was plenty 
of room under it for stowing away the loose 
earth. The ground was not hard, yet it was quite 
firm, and on the whole favorable for such oper- 
ations. The work was progressing finely, till 
the officers were suddenly removed from Salisbury 
in consequence of the discovery of a great plot. 
I had become a good deal interested in Manning 
and his tunnel plan, and on the morning of Wednes- 
day, October 12th, I introduced him to General 
Hayes, our senior officer. He told us he had for 
several days been considering the possibility of 
organizing the three or four hundred officers, and 
the five to ten thousand soldiers. He believed 
that by a simultaneous assault at many points we 
could seize the artillery, break the fence, capture 
the three rebel camps, then arm and ration this 
extemporized army, and march away. He showed 
us a good map of North Carolina. He invited all 
of the field officers to meet that evening in the 
garret of house number two. All of them accord- 
ingly, about thirty in number, were present. 
Posting sentinels to keep out intruders, and stop- 
ping the open windows so that the faint light of 
a tallow candle might not betray us or create sus- 
picion, we sat down in the gloom. 



62 Lights and Shadows 

The general had modestly absented himself, in 
order that we might be uninfluenced by him in 
reaching a decision; but our first step was to 
send for him, and then insist on his taking the 
chair — the chair, for we had but one ! As he had 
made a careful study of the subject, we pressed 
him to give his views. He proceeded to state the 
grounds of his beHef that it was practicable to 
strike an effective blow for our liberation. He told 
us that he had communicated with a Union man 
outside, and had learned the number and location 
of the Confederate troops we should be likely to 
encounter on our march to East Tennessee. He 
explained at some length the details of his plan, 
the obstacles we should encounter, and how to 
overcome them. I shall never forget the conclu- 
sion of his speech. These were almost exactly his 
words : 

We must organize; organize victory. The sooner 
we act the better, provided we have a well-arranged 
plan. We can capture this town, ration our men, 
provide them with shoes, clothing, and muskets, and 
have a formidable army right here at once. It need 
not take more than half a day. Certainly we can march 
off within twenty-four hours after the first blow is 
struck, if we begin right. The enemy have a few guns 
on the hill, but they are not "in battery". We can 
take these and take the artillery here right along with 



In Confederate Prisons 63 

us. The principal obstacle is here ; make the beginning 
right; master these prisons and these camps, and we 
are safe. Organize is the word ; organize. If any one 
shall betray us, or aid the rebels, or be guilty of rob- 
bery or other outrage, I am in favor of a drumhead 
court martial and a summary execution. Now, gentle- 
men, I am ready to serve in any capacity, whether 
to lead or to follow. 

Colonel Ralston of the 24th N. Y. ''dismounted 
cavalry," as they were called, spoke next. He 
was an energetic and dashing officer who fell near 
me in an attempt to break out of Danville prison 
on the tenth of the following December. He 
entered into the particulars of a plan of action, 
showing how easy it would be, with the probable 
loss of but few lives, to capture the three camps 
with the Salisbury arsenal and the artillery. As 
his particular share in the work, he said he would 
undertake with a small company to disarm the 
twenty or thirty sentinels inside the enclosure, 
and instantly thereupon to capture the head- 
quarters of Major Gee. 

Other officers gave valuable suggestions. Being 
called upon for my opinion, I spoke of the duty we 
owed our enlisted men to extricate them from their 
shocking condition, for they were beginning to die 
every night on the bare ground, and would soon be 
perishing by scores. I urged the effect the escape 



64 Lights and Shadows 

of some eight thousand prisoners would have upon 
the nation, being equivalent to a great victory; 
and, better than victory, it would add so many 
thousands of trained soldiers at once to our armies 
in the field. I insisted that this success would 
be cheaply bought, even if it cost, as it probably 
would, a hundred hves. 

Of all our thirty field officers, only one opposed 
the scheme (Lieut.-Col. G ). He was acknow- 
ledged to be brave, ' but seemingly lacking in 
enterprise. He said in substance, "I have care- 
fully examined the situation, and have come to the 
conclusion that it is utterly useless to attempt to 
escape by force. It can't be done at present. We 
should be slaughtered by the hundred. If you all 
vote to try it, I will join you; but in my opinion 
it is perfect madness. " 

With but one dissenting voice it was resolved to 
go ahead. A committee of five was immediately 
appointed to prepare and present a plan of action. 
This committee were Colonel Ralston; Col. W. 
Ross Hartshome, 190th Pa. (the famous "Bucktail 
Regiment," whose first colonel, O'Neil, my Yale 
classmate, was killed at Antietam); Col. James 
Carle, 191st Pa.; Major John Byrne, 155th N. Y.; 

"■ He had killed three men with his sword at the time of his 
capture. 



In Confederate Prisons 65 

and myself, Lieutenant-Colonel of the 13th Conn. 
We were supposed to be fighting men, and had all 
been wounded in battle. 

A similar meeting of field officers was held the 
following evening. For two days the committee was 
almost continually in consultation with General 
Hayes. Great pains was taken to have the plans 
fully understood by all the officers and to secure 
their hearty cooperation. By ingenious methods 
frequent communication was had with the enlisted 
men across the "dead line'*; sometimes by hurl- 
ing written communications ballasted with stone; 
several times by Lieutenant Manning and others 
running swiftly past the sentinels in the dark ; best 
of all, because least liable to discovery, by the 
use of the deaf-and-dumb alphabet. We were 
suffering for want of water, and several officers got 
permission to go outside the enclosure ostensibly 
to procure it, but really to reconnoitre. 

The committee reported the following plan, 
which was unanimously adopted: 

The first object in the movement being to get 
into a hand-to-hand fight as soon as possible ; seven 
columns, each several hundred strong, were to 
make simultaneous assaults upon six or seven 
different points. The fence being the first impedi- 
ment, every man's haversack and pockets were to 



66 Lights and Shadows 

be filled with stones to keep down the sentinels 
who would fire on us from the top. Some got 
levers to wrench off boards, others logs to serve 
as rude battering rams, others sharpened stakes 
which Ralston called "Irish pikes," others clubs, 
or any possible weapon. I had a rusty old 
bayonet. 

Major David Sadler, 2d Pennsylvania Heavy 
Artillery, with his battalion was to rush and seize 
the cannon and muskets at the angle on the right ; 
Major John Byrne and his column at the same 
instant were to pounce upon the big gun and mus- 
kets at the angle on our left; simultaneously Colonel 
Ralston and his men are to dash upon the nine sen- 
tinels on the "dead line" in front of the officers* 
houses, in a moment disarming them and the nine of 
the relief just arriving ; then spring to the assistance 
of Major August Haurand of the 4th N. Y. Cavalry 
and his battalion who are capturing Major Gee's 
headquarters and guards and camp on our right. 
Col. James Carle, 191st Pa., with his hundreds is 
breaking through the fence and capturing the rebel 
camp in rear of the officers' quarters. Colonel, after- 
wards General, W. Ross Hartshome and his 330 men 
of the 190th Pa. are to break the fence just above 
the main rebel camp which is on our left. My own 
column of about three hundred men of the Nine- 



In Confederate Prisons 67 

teenth Corps are to break the fence just below the 
rebel camp; then Hartshome and I are to leap from 
opposite sides upon this, the main camp. These 
seven battalions were to some extent organized 
with field, staff, and company officers. Every 
officer and soldier was to be on the qiii vive a 
little before five o'clock in the morning, watching 
intently for the signal. This was to be the wav- 
ing of a fire-brand by General Hayes in front of 
house number two. 

Quite a number of officers had no faith in the 
plot, and they regarded it with indifference. A 
few expressed hostility to it. One captain, who 
had been a prisoner before and seemed glad 
to have been captured again, a bloated, over- 
grown, swaggering, filthy bully, of course a cow- 
ard, formerly a keeper of a low groggery and said 
to have been commissioned for political reasons, 
was repeatedly heard to say in sneering tones in 
the hearing of rebel sentries, ^^ Some of our officers 
have got escape on the brai7t/^ with other words 
to the like effect. Colonel Hartshorne finally 
stopped such traitorous language by saying with 

tremendous emphasis : " Captain D , I've heard 

a good deal of your attempts to discourage officers 
from escaping, and your loud talk about officers 
having 'escape on the brain.' Now, sir, I give 



68 Lights and Shadows 

you notice that if you're again guilty of anything 
of the sort, i'll — break — ^your head — ^with— a 
club!" 

The time agreed upon for the seven simultaneous 
attacks was about an hour before sunrise the morn- 
ing of October 15th, 

As we had feared, the rebel authorities, whether 
through suspected treachery or otherwise, got 
wind of our purpose. Towards evening of Octo- 
ber 14th extraordinary vigilance on their part 
became apparent. Troops were paraded, posts 
strengthened, guards doubled, privileges restricted, 
and word was passed around in our hearing that 
a battalion of Confederates had just arrived. 
Their watchfulness seemed unrelaxed through the 
night. The shooting of Lieutenant Davis next 
morning was doubtless in obedience to orders for a 
more rigorous enforcement of rules. 

Our outbreak was countermanded and post- 
poned, but preparations continued. The delay 
enabled us to perfect our plans, and make our 
organizations more complete. The early morn- 
ing of October 20th, the 19th being the anniversary 
of my birth, was now fixed upon for the "insur- 
rection." We essayed to disarm suspicion by an 
air of quiet acquiescence in the lazy routine of 
prison life, or absorption in the simplest and most 



In Confederate Prisons 69 

innocent occupations whenever any Confederate 
might be looking on. 

We recognized united and instantaneous action 
at the signal on the part of three hundred officers 
and several thousand men as the most vitally- 
important element of success. It was necessary 
that this should be thoroughly understood and 
emphasized, so that every soldier should be in 
perfect readiness at the critical moment. 

Several of us had form.ed a class for oral instruc- 
tion in French. Our teacher was Captain Cook 
of the 9th U. S. colored troops, a graduate of Yale. 
About ten o'clock in the morning of October i8th, 
as we were seated on the ground near house num- 
ber four, loudly imitating Professor Cook's parlez- 
vous, Lieut. Wm. C. Gardner, adjutant of one 
of those extemporized battalions of prisoners, 
brought me a letter he was intending to throw 
across the "dead line" to Sergt. Wallace W.Smith, 
requesting him to notify all enlisted men of the 
battalion when and where to assemble silently 
next morning in the dark, how to arm themselves, 
from whom to take orders, what signal to watch 
for, and other important matters. I glanced 
through it, and immediately said: ''You'd better 
not entrust the communication to so hazardous 
a channel; wait an hour till I've done with my 



70 Lights and Shadows 

French lesson, and I'll cause it to be transmitted 
by the deaf-and-dumb alphabet." If I recollect 
rightly, either Lieutenant Tobey or Lieutenant 
Morton, both of the 58th Massachusetts, was in 
the class, and promised to convey the contents of 
the letter safely across to the soldiers by adroit 
finger manipulation. We were just finishing the 
French exercise, when Adjutant Gardner came 
greatly excited, and this conversation followed : 

*'Good God, Colonel, the rebs have got that 
letter ! I tied it to a stone and flung it a long ways 
over the 'dead line' to Wallace Smith. He ap- 
peared afraid to pick it up. A reb sentinel stepped 
away from his beat and got it. " 

"I requested you to wait till I'd done reciting 
French, and I told you I'd then communicate it 
by the deaf-and-dumb alphabet. " 

"Well, Colonel, I ought to have done so; but I 
was anxious to have the work done promptly, and 
I thought it was perfectly safe. I've tossed letters 
over to Smith several times. I'm worried to death 
about it. What's best to do?" 

"Was your name signed to it?" 

" No; but my name was on the envelope — an old 
letter envelope that I had when we came here." 

"Well, Gardner, this is a pretty piece of busi- 



In Confederate Prisons 71 

ness! That letter of course will go very soon 
to Major Gee's headquarters, and then — there'll 
be the devil to pay!" 

"The sentinel handed the letter to the officer 
of the guard. What had I better say, if they 
send for me?" 

''Say you intended the letter to fall into their 
hands; that you meant it as a practical joke, 
wanted to get up another scare, and see the 
Johnnies prick up their ears again." 

''But, Colonel, like a fust-class fool I put a ten- 
dollar Confederate bill in the envelope. I wanted 
to give it to Sergeant Smith. That don't look as 
if I meant it to fall into their hands — does it?" 

"Gardner, this thing has an ugly look. You've 
knocked our plans of escape in the head — at least 
for the present. You've got yourself into a fix. 
They'll haul you up to headquarters. They'll 
prove by the letter that you've been deep in a 
plot that would have cost a good many lives. 
They're feeling ugly. They may hang or shoot 
you before sundown, as a warning to the rest of 
us to stop these plots to escape. They may send 
for you at any minute." 

"What had I better say or do?'* 

"You'd better make yourself scarce for a while, 
till you've got a plausible story made up. 



^2 #^' Lights and Shadows f 

Better-vdisguise yourself and pass }fdtlrself off as 
somebody else; so gain time." 

"I have it, Colonel; I'll pass myself off as 
Estabrooks. '* v^/ 

Estabrooks was an officejT'of the 26th Mass., who 
had escaped at the crosSifg of the river Yadkin 
two weeks previously j|^^en we came from Rich- 
mond. Gardner w^|:^'a handsome man and per- 
haps the best-dressied ofBcer in prison ; but he now 
disguised himself.^ The transformation was com- 
plete. In half aSS hour a man came to me wearing 
a slouched hat and a very ragged suit of Confeder- 
ate gray. He had been a play-actor before the 
war and knew how to conceal his identity. By 
his voice I recognized him as Gardner! "Well, 
Gardner," said I, ''this surpasses ffis "^atariii 
Majesty; or, as you would say, beats the devil!" — "| 
"Colonel, ".he replied, "I'm not Gardner. Gard- fi 
'iier escaped; escaped at the crossing of the Yadkin .^* 
River, r'ni Estabrooks, H. L. Estabrooks, 2d 
Lieutenant, 26th Mass. Call me Estabrooks , 
if you please." — "All right, Estabrooks it is." ^ -;t 

Hardly had we had time to whisper around thfe/v=^j 

^ "We run the boy into one of the houses, clipped his hi; 
shaved him, and placed a new robe on him." — Letter of Ca 
Wesley C. Howe to Colonel Sprague, Jan. 30, 1914. 



wV 







In Confederate Prisons 73 

change of name, when the Confederate officer of 
the guard made his appearance with two or three 
so}<^wTr^^ inqfxinng for the commissary of house 
number four. I was pointed cat to him. In sub- 
stance and almost in the exact words this dialogue 
ensued: 

"Colonel Sprague, are you commissary of this 
house?" 

" I have that honor. '* 

"I want to find Lieutenant Gardner." 

"Who?" 

" Lieutenant Gardner. " 

"Who's Lieutenant Gardner?" 

"I am told he's an officer in house number four; 
and as you are commissary, you can probably tell 
me where he is at. " 

"Where he's what?" 

"Where he's a^." 

This was the first time I had ever heard the word 
at so used at the end of a sentence ; but it expresses 
.the meaning with admirable precision. I had a 
slight qualm at lying ; but I remembered that even 
George Washington could tell a lie if necessary in 
war. Pacifying my conscience with the fact that 
we were outside the house at the time, I said: 



74 Lights and Shadows 

"There's no such officer in house four. But I 
remember an officer of that name at Libby, hand- 
somely dressed, a perfect dandy. I heard that 
he escaped at the crossing of the Yadkin River two 
weeks ago. Has he been recaptured, and is he 
going to be shot or hanged? Or have you a letter 
for him? What's the good news about Gardner?" 

"I only know," he replied, "that he's wanted 
at Major Gee's office, and he's an officer in house 
number four.'* 

"Estabrooks," said I to the man at my side, 
"do you know of a Lieutenant Gardner?" 

" I did know slightly such a man at Libby. You 
have described him well; a fop, a beau, a dandy; 
just about my size, but he didn't wear rags like I 
do." 

"Come with me," said I to the Confederate. 
"We'll go into the house and inquire if any one 
knows of a Lieutenant Gardner." We went in. 
There were perhaps thirty or forty inside who had 
got wind of what was going on. As we entered, 
I asked in a loud voice, "Does any officer in this 
house know anything of a Lieutenant Gardner?'* 
Several smiled and declared it a very singular 
name. One wanted to know how it was spelled! 
A number were speaking at once. One said he 



In Confederate Prisons 75 

escaped at the Yadkin; he knew he got away, for 
he "watched him till he got a long distance out 
of sight.** Another knew a Henry J. Gardner, *'a 
Know-Nothing" governor of Massachusetts, who 
knew enough to keep out of the army. Another 
affirmed that Gardner was dead ; he had heard him 
say ''I'm a dead man, " and he wouldn't tell a lie! 
My memory is somewhat indistinct of all that 
was said ; but Gardner is alleged to have whispered 
the officer thus: "I have been a gardener myself; 
and if Major Gee will parole me and give me good 
clothes and something to eat, I wouldn't mind 
becoming again a gardener in his employ." I 
recollect distinctly that the officer grew impatient 
and he finally asked me, "Do you say on your 
honor, Colonel, that you don't know a Lieut. 
Wm. 0. Gardner in this house?" I answered, "I 
do"; but I left him to guess whether I meant "I 
do know,'' or "I do say!'' I quieted my con- 
scientious scruples by remembering that the lieu- 
tenant's true name was not Wm. O. but Wm. C. ! 
The baffled officer left very angry, and " Where's 
Gardner at?" passed into a conundrum. 

Late that afternoon, as I was engaged in the 
delightful employment of washing my fall-and- 
winter shirt, having for the first time since our 
arrival in Salisbury obtained sufficient water for 



76 In Confederate Prisons 

that purpose, the order came for all officers to fall 
in and take the cars for Danville, Va. The juxta- 
position of three or four hundred Yankee officers 
with eight thousand of their enlisted comrades- 
in-arms was getting dangerous. 



CHAPTER VI 

From Salisbury to Danville — The Forlorn Situation — Effort to 
"Extract Sunshine from Cucumbers" — The Vermin — The 
Prison Commandant a Yale Man — Proposed Theatricals — 
Rules Adopted — Studies — Vote in Prison for Lincoln and 
McClellan— Killing Time." 

At six o'clock, Wednesday evening, October 
19, 1864, we officers, about 350 in number, were 
packed in five freight cars, and the train was 
started for Danville, Va. The tops of the cars 
were covered with armed guards, two or three 
being also stationed within at the side door of 
each car. In the darkness about half -past nine 
Lieut. Joseph B. Simpson of the nth Indiana 
slyly stole all the food from the haversacks of the 
guards at the door of our car and passed it round 
to us, while we loudly ''cussed and discussed" 
slavery and secession! About midnight Captain 
Lockwood, Lieutenant Driscoll, and eight or ten 
other officers leaped from the cars. The guards 
opened fire upon them. Lockwood was shot dead. 
Several were recaptured, and some probably 
reached the Union lines in safety. We arrived 
at Danville at noon October 20th. 



78 ^ Lights and Shadows 

The town at this time contained four, formerly 
six, military prisons, each a tobacco house about 
eighty to a hundred feet long by forty to fifty 
wide, three stories high, built of brick, low between 
joints. The officers were put into the building 
known as prison number three. We were informed 
by the guards that it had formerly contained 
about two hundred negro prisoners ; but that some 
had died, others had been delivered to their 
masters or set at work on fortifications, and the 
number remaining just before our arrival was only 
sixty-four. These were removed to make room 
for us. 

Except about twenty large stout wooden boxes 
called spittoons, there was no furniture whatever 
in prison number three. Conjecture was rife as 
to the purpose of the Confederates in supplying us 
with spittoons and nothing else. They were too 
short for coffins, too large for wash bowls, too 
shallow for bathing tubs, too deep for tureens! 
To me much meditating on final causes, a vague 
suspicion at length arose that there was some 
mysterious relation between those twenty oblong 
boxes and a score of hogsheads of plug tobacco, 
said to be stored in the basement. A tertium quid, 
a solution of the tobacco, might afford a solution 
of the spittoon mystery! 



In Confederate Prisons 79 

A dozen water buckets were put into each of the 
two upper rooms to which all the officers were 
restricted ; also a small cylinder coal stove ; nothing 
else until December, when another small stove 
was placed there. Winter came early and un- 
usually cold. The river Dan froze thick. It was 
some weeks before we prevailed upon the prison 
commandant to replace with wood the broken-out 
glass in the upper rooms. The first floor was 
uninhabitable. 

So with no bed nor blanket; no chairs, benches, 
nor tables; no table-ware nor cooking utensils; 
not even shovel, poker, or coal-scoop; most of us 
were in a sorry plight. The little stoves, heated 
white-hot, would have been entirely inadequate 
to warm those rooms; but the coal was miserably 
deficient in quality as well as quantity. The fire 
often went out. To rekindle it, there was no 
other way than to upset the whole, emptying ashes 
and cinders on the floor. At best, the heat was 
obstructed by a compact ring of shivering officers, 
who had preempted positions nearest the stoves. 
They had taken upon themselves to **run" the 
thing; and they did it well. We called them " The 
Stove Brigade." In spite of their efforts, they 
like the rest suffered from cold. 

Three or four of us, as a sanitary measure, made 



8o Lights and Shadows 

it a point to see, if possible, the funny, or at least 
the bright side of everything, turn melancholy to 
mirth, shadow to sunshine. When every officer 
complained of cold, we claimed to anticipate the 
philosophers, Tyndall, Huxley, and the other 
physicists, in declaring that "heat is a mode of 
motion,'' and brisk bodily exercise will infallibly 
demonstrate the fact! When, as was usually the 
case, all were hungry, we announced as a sure cure 
for indigestion, * ' stop eating ! ' ' When our prisoner 
chaplain Emerson on a Sunday afternoon prayed 
for the dear ones we expected to see no more, and 
even the roughest and most profane were in tears, 
we said with old Homer, '' Agathoi aridakrues 
andres'' ("Gallant men are easily moved to tears"), 
or with Bayard Taylor, **The bravest are the 
tenderest, the loving are the daring.'* 

Most humiliating of all was the inevitable plague 
of vermin. "Hard indeed," one officer was ac- 
customed to say, "must have been Pharaoh's 
heart, and tougher yet his epidermis, if the lice of 
the third Egyptian plague were like those of Dan- 
ville, and yet he would not * let Israel go.' " Wear- 
ing the same clothing night and day, sitting on the 
bare floors, sleeping there in contact with com- 
panions not over-nice, no patient labor, no exter- 
minating unguent, afforded much relief. We lost 



In Confederate Prisons 8i 

all squeamishness, all delicacy on the subject, all 
inclination for concealment. It was not a returned 
Danville prisoner who was reported to have gone 
into a drug store in New York stealthily scratch- 
ing and saying, *'I want some unguentum'; don't 
want it for myself; only want it for a friend." 
But it was reported and believed that in April one 
of them entered an apothecary shop in Annapolis 
plying his finger-nails and hurriedly asking, 
''Have you any bmsquintum?" — "From your 
manner," answered the courteous druggist, **I 
think what you want is unguentum."- — "Yes, 
run git ^em; I guess that is the true name. " — "Un- 
guentum, sir"; said the shopkeeper. "How much 
unguentum do you want?" — "Well, I reckon 
about two pound!" — "My dear sir, two pounds 
would kill all the lice in Maryland."— "Well, I 
vow I believe I've got 'em!" 

Lieut.-Col. Robert C. Smith of Baltimore, who 
took command of the Danville prisons soon after 
our arrival, appeared to be kind-hearted, com- 
passionate, but woefully destitute of what Mrs. 
Stowe calls "faculty. " He was of medium height, 
spare build, fair complexion, sandy hair, blue 
eyes, of slightly stooping figure ; on the whole rather 
good-looking. He was slow of speech, with a 
nasal twang that reminded me of Dr. Horace 



S2 Lights and Shadows 

Bushnell. His face always wore a sad expression. 
He had been a student at Yale in the forties a few 
years before me. Once a prisoner himself in our 
hands and fairly treated, he sympathized with us. 
He had been wounded, shot through the right 
shoulder. When I visited on parole the other 
Danville prisons in February, a Yankee soldier 
was pointed out to me as wearing Colonel Smith's 
blood-stained coat, and another was said to be 
wearing his vest. I had repeated interviews with 
him, in which he expressed regret at not being 
able to make us more comfortable. He said more 
than once to me, '' I have no heart for this business. 
It requires a man without any heart to keep a mil- 
itary prison. I have several times asked to be re- 
lieved and sent to the front. " An officer of forceful 
executive ability might have procured for us 
lumber for benches, more coal or wood for the 
stoves, some straw or hay for bedding, blankets or 
cast-off clothing for the half naked ; possibly a little 
food, certainly a supply of reading matter from 
the charitably disposed. Single instances of his 
compassion I have mentioned. I shall have 
occasion to speak of another. But the spectacle 
of the hopeless mass of misery in the four Danville 
prisons seemed to render him powerless, if not 
indifferent. As Mrs. Browning puts it: 



In Confederate Prisons 83 

A red-haired child, 
Sick in a fever, if you touch him once, 
Though but so httle as with a finger-tip, 
Will set you weeping; but a million sick! 
You could as soon weep for the rule of three, 
Or compound fractions! 

Like too many officers both Union and Confeder- 
ate, he was often in liquor ; liquor was always in him. 
This ''knight of the rueful countenance," of the 
sad heart, the mourning voice, the disabled right 
arm, and the weakness for apple-jack! — his only 
hope was to have an exchange of prisoners; but 
Lincoln and Stanton and Grant would not consent 
to that. The last I heard of him was when a letter 
of his was shown me by Lieutenant Washington, a 
Confederate, a distant relative of the great George. 
In it Smith, who had been absent a week from 
Danville, complained that he had had "no liquor 
for three days," and that he was ''painfully 
sober"! 

"Necessity," says the old apothegm, "is the 
mother of invention." It was surprising, how 
much we accomplished in a few weeks towards 
making ourselves comfortable. Bone or wood was 
carved into knives, forks, spoons, buttons, finger- 
rings, masonic or army badges, tooth-picks, bosom 
pins, and other ornaments; corn-cobs were made 



84 Lights and SKadows 

into smoking pipes; scraps of tin or sheet-iron 
were fashioned into plates for eating or dishes for 
cooking; shelves were made by tying long wood 
splinters together; and many "spittoons," which 
were soon rendered superfluous, because the two 
entire rooms were transformed into vast spittoons, 
were inverted, and made useful as seats which we 
called sofas. 

Many ingeniously wrought specimens of Yankee 
ingenuity were sold clandestinely to the rebel 
guards, who ventured to disobey strict orders. No 
skinflint vender of wooden nutmegs, leather 
pumpkin-seeds, horn gunfiints, shoe-peg oats, 
huckleberry-leaf tea, bass-wood cheeses, or white- 
oak hams, ever hankered more for a trade. Besides 
the products of our prison industry, they craved 
watches, rings, gold chains, silver spurs, gilt 
buttons, genuine breast-pins, epaulets; anything 
that was not manufactured in the Confederacy. 
Most of all, they longed for greenbacks in exchange 
for rebel currency. So in one way or another many 
of us contrived to get a little money of some sort. 
With it we could buy of the sutler, who visited us 
from time to time, rice, flour, beans, bacon, onions, 
dried apple, red peppers, sorghum syrup, vinegar, 
etc. 

Perhaps the best result of our engaging in handi- 



In Confederate Prisons 85 

craft work was the relief from unspeakable depres- 
sion of spirits. Some of us saw the importance of 
making diversion on a large scale. To this end we 
planned to start a theatre. Major Wm. H. Fry, 
of the 1 6th Pa. Cavalry, who knew all about 
vaudeville in Philadelphia, was a wise adviser. 
Young Gardner, who had been an actor, heartily 
joined in the movement. I procured a worn-out 
copy of Shakespeare. It seemed best to begin with 
the presentation of the first act in Hamlet. Colonel 
Smith and other rebel officers promised to aid us. 
We assigned the parts and commenced stud3dng 
and rehearsing. Gardner was to be Hamlet; 
Lieut. -Col. Theodore Gregg, 45th Pa., was to be 
Claudius, the usurping king; the smooth-faced 
Capt. William Cook was to be the queen-mother 
Gertrude; Capt. W. F. Tiemann, 159th N. Y., 
was to personate Marcellus; Lieut. C. H. Morton 
of Fairhaven, Mass., I think, was Horatio; and 
I, having lost about forty pounds of flesh since my 
capture — it was thought most appropriate that I 
should be the Ghost! Every morning for some 
weeks on the empty first floor we read and re- 
hearsed, and really made fine progress. But when 
we got ready to produce in theatric style, with sHght 
omissions, the first act, the rebels seemed sus- 
picious of some ulterior design. They refused to 



86 Lights and Shadows 

furnish a sword for Hamlet, a halberd for Marcel- 
lus, muskets for Bernardo and Francisco, a calico 
gown for the queen, or even a white shirt for the 
Ghost. This was discouraging. When the lovely 
queen-mother Gertrude appealed to her son — 

Good Hamlet, cast thy nighted color off, — 

he answered, "I swear I can't do it!" One 
November morning, as we were rehearsing and 
shivering on the windy first floor, he ejaculated 
with some emphasis, and with ungentle expletives 
not found in the original text. 

The air bites shrewdly ; it is very cold ; 

"I move. Colonel, that we 'bust up' this 
theatre.'* So the "legitimate drama" vanished 
from Danville. 

About this time my copy of the Greek New 
Testament was stolen from me, an instance, per- 
haps, of piety run mad. 

A week or two before this, the lower room, in 
which I then lodged, containing about a hundred 
and seventy officers, was getting into such a 
condition that I felt it my duty to call a meeting 
to see what measures could be adopted to promote 
comfort and decency. I was not the senior in 
rank, but Colonel Carle did not feel himself au- 



In Confederate Prisons 87 

thorized to issue orders. Some sort of government 
must be instituted at once. Nearly all recognized 
the necessity of prompt action and strict discipline. 
A committee was appointed consisting of myself, 
Major John W. Byron, 88th N. Y., and another 
officer whose name escapes me, to draw up rules 
and regulations. We presented the following: 

RULES UNANIMOUSLY ADOPTED IN THE LOWER ROOM, 
DANVILLE, VA., PRISON, OCT. 26, 1 864: 

1. The room shall be thoroughly policed (swept, 

etc.) four times each day by the messes in 
succession; viz., at sunrise and sunset, and 
immediately after breakfast and dinner. 

2. There shall be no washing in this room. 

3. No emptying slops into spittoons. 

4. No washing in the soup buckets or water buckets. 

5. No shaking of clothes or blankets in this room. 

6. No cooking inside the stoves. 

7. No loitering in the yard to the inconvenience of 

others. 

8. No person shall be evidently filthy or infested 

with vermin. 

9. No indecent, profane, or ungentlemanly language 

in this room. 

10. No conduct unbecoming an officer and gentle- 

man about these premises. 

1 1 . No talking aloud at night after nine o'clock. 

12. An officer of the day shall be appointed daily by 

the senior ofiicer, whose duty shall be to see 
that these rules are strictly enforce!, and to 



88 Lights and Shadows 

report to the senior officer any violation 
thereof. 
13. In case of anyalleged violation of any of these rules, 
the senior officer of the room shall appoint a 
Court' to consist of thirteen disinterested 
officers, who shall fairly try and determine the 
matter, and in case of conviction the offender's 
rations shall be stopped, or the commander of 
the prison be requested to confine the offender 
in a cell according to the sentence of the Court ; 
and it shall be the duty of every officer to 
have such offender court-martialed after re- 
joining his command. 
For the Committee. H. B. Sprague, Oct, 26, 1864. 

The prison commandant promised that he would 
execute any sentence short of capital punishment. 
But one case was tried by such court. The offense 
was a gross violation of rule 9. The culprit was let 
off with a sharp reprimand by General Hayes ; but 
my first act after the exchange of prisoners was 
to prefer charges and specifications against him. 
The beast was court-martialed at Annapolis in the 
latter part of July, '65. 

The observance of these rules wrought wonders 
in correcting evils which had become almost un- 
endurable, and in promoting cheerfulness, good 
behavior, and mutual esteem. 

Many letters were written to us. Few of them 

^ See Appendix. 



In Confederate Prisons 89 

reached their destination. The first I received 
was from Miss Martha Russell, a lady of fine Hter- 
ary abiHty, a friend of Edgar A. Poe, living at 
North Branford, Conn. In raising my company 
(Co. H., 13th Conn.), I had enlisted her brother 
Alfred. Under strict mihtary discipline he had 
become a valuable soldier, and I had appointed 
him my first sergeant. At the battle of Irish 
Bend, La., in which I was myself wounded, he 
was shot through the neck. The wound seemed 
mortal, but I secured special care for him, and his 
life was spared as by miracle. His sister's letter 
brought a ray of sunshine to several of us. It 
assured us that we were tenderly cared for at 
home. She quoted to cheer us the fine lines of 
the Cavalier poet Lovelace, 

Stone walls do not a prison make, 

Nor iron bars a cage; 
Minds innocent and quiet take 

That for a hermitage. 

A well-grounded conviction prevailed among the 
prisoners that the Confederate government was 
anxious to secure an exchange of prisoners, but 
that the Federal government would not consent. 
The reason was evident enough. The Confederate 
prisoners in the North, as a rule, were fit for mili- 
tary duty; the Union prisoners in the South were 



90 Lights and Shadows 

physically unfit. A general exchange would have 
placed at once, say, more than forty thousand 
fresh soldiers in the rebel ranks, but very few in 
ours. Conscription for military service had been 
tried in the North with results so bitter that it 
seemed unwise to attempt it again. Better let the 
unfortunates in southern prisons perish in silence — 
that appeared the wisest policy. But to us prison- 
ers it appeared a mistake and gross neglect of duty. 
Between our keen sense of the wrong in allowing us 
to starve, and our love for Lincoln and the Union, 
there was a struggle. Our patriotism was put to 
the test on the day of the Presidential election, 
Tuesday, November 8th. Discouraging as was the 
outlook for us personally, we had confidence in the 
government and in the justice of our cause. Pains 
was taken to obtain a full and fair vote in the 
officers' prison. There were two hundred seventy- 
six for Lincoln; ninety-one for McClellan. Under 
the circumstances the result was satisfactory. 
Very earnest, if not acrimonious, were the dis- 
cussions that immediately preceded and followed. 
Some of us realized their importance, not so much 
in arriving at a correct decision on the questions 
at issue, as in preventing mental stagnation likely 
to result in imbecility if not actual idiocy. By 
the stimulus of employment of some kind we must 



In Confederate Prisons 91 

fight against the apathy, the hopeless loss of will 
power, into which several of our comrades seemed 
sinking. Mrs. Browning well says: 

Get leave to work 
In this world, — 'tis the best you get at all. 

Get work; get work; 

Be sure 'tis better than what you work to get! 

Some of us started historical debates, and new 
views were presented which furnished both amuse- 
ment and instruction. One colonel, more redoubt- 
able in battle than in dialectics, who had been 
shot through from breast to back, gravely informed 
us that the geometer EucHd was an early English 
writer! A kindly visitor. Dr. Holbrook, made me 
a present of Hitchcock's Elementary Geology. It 
was not quite up to date, having been published 
about twenty-five years before, but I found the 
study interesting. Grieved at having lost from 
my books three years in military service, I endeav- 
ored with three or four companions to make up 
for the deficiency by taking lessons in French. 
Our teacher was Captain Cook, already mentioned 
as teaching us French at Salisbury. As we had no 
books, the instruction was oral. I was delighted to 
observe how much a knowledge of Latin facilitated 
the acquisition of the modem tongue. A few 
weeks later upon the arrival of Major George 



92 In Confederate Prisons 

Haven Putnam, Adjutant at that time of the 
176th N. Y., several of us commenced under 
him the study of German. Here too the teaching 
was oral; but I was able to buy Oehlschlager's 
German Reader; took special pleasure in memoriz- 
ing some of the selections, particularly from the 
poets Gleim, Claudius, Goethe, Schiller, and Uh- 
land ; and I was already familiar with some stanzas 
of Amdt's noble The German Fatherland, sung so 
often to me by my Lieutenant Meisner, slain by my 
side in battle. Some of those songs still ring in 
my ears. General Hayes, Major Putnam, and two 
or three others took lessons in Spanish from a 
native of Mexico, 26. Lieut. John Gayetti (I think 
that was his name), of Battery B, 2d Pa. Artillery. 

Checkerboards and chessboards were prepared 
from the rudest materials, and many were the 
games with which some of our comrades sought to 
beguile the weary hours. Capt. Frank H. Mason 
of the 1 2th Cavalry had the reputation of being 
our best chess player and young Adjutant Putnam 
was his most persistent opponent. 

No one needs to be told that old soldiers are 
great story-tellers, drawing upon their imagina- 
tion for facts. This talent was assiduously 
cultivated in our prison. 



CHAPTER VII 

Exact Record of Rations in Danville — Opportunity to Cook — 
Daily Routine of Proceedings from Early Dawn till Late 

at Night. 

Our imprisonment at Danville lasted from 
October 20, '64, to February 17, '65, one hundred 
and twenty days. I kept a careful daily record of 
the rations issued to us, as did also Lieut. Watson 
W. Bush, 2d N. Y. "Mounted Rifles." After 
our removal from Danville to Richmond for ex- 
change, we compared our memoranda, and found 
they substantially agreed. During the one hun- 
dred and twenty days the issues were as follows: 

Bread. A loaf every morning. It was made of 
unsifted corn-meal, ground "cobs and all." Pieces 
several inches in length of cobs unground were some- 
times contained in it. It always seemed whole- 
some, though moist, almost watery. Its dimensions 
were a little less than 7 inches long, 3 or 4 wide, and 
3 thick. I managed to bring home a loaf, and we were 
amazed at the shrinkage to a quarter of its original 
size. It had become very hard. We broke it in two, 
and found inside what appeared to be a dishcloth! 

Meat, Forty-three times. I estimated the weight 
93 



94 Lights and Shadows 

at from 2 to 5 or 6 ounces. In it sometimes were 
hides, brains, heads, tails, jaws with teeth, lights, 
livers, kidneys, intestines, and nameless portions of the 
animal economy. 

Soup. Sixty-two times; viz., bean soup forty-seven 
times ; cabbage nine times ; gruel six. It was the thin- 
nest decoction of small black beans, the slightest 
infusion of cabbage, or the most attenuated gruel of 
corn-cob meal, that a poetic imagination ever digni- 
fied with the name of soup! 

Potatoes. Seven times. Seldom was one over an 
inch in diameter. 

Salt fish. Five times. They call it "hake." It 
was good. " Hunger the best sauce. " 

Sorghum syrup. Three times. It was known as 
"corn-stalk molasses." It was not bad. 

Nothing else was given us for food by the Con- 
federates at Danville. The rations appeared to 
deteriorate and diminish as the winter advanced. 
My diary shows that in the fifty-three days after 
Christmas we received meat only three times. 

Manifestly such supplies are insufBcient to sus- 
tain life very long. By purchase from the rebel sut- 
ler who occasionally visited us, or by surreptitious 
trading with the guards, we might make additions 
to our scanty allowance. I recollect that two 
dollars of irredeemable treasury notes would buy 
a gill of rice or beans or com, a turnip, onion, 
parsnip, or small pickled cucumber! 



In Confederate Prisons 95 

The Confederate cooking needed to be sup- 
plemented. Here the cylinder coal- stoves were 
made useful. The tops of them were often covered 
with toasting corn bread. Tin pails and iron 
kettles of various capacities, from a pint to several 
quarts, suspended from the top by wooden hooks 
a foot or two in length, each vessel resting against 
the hot stove and containing rice, beans, Indian 
com, dried apple, crust coffee, or other delicacy 
potable or edible slowly preparing, made the whole 
look like a big black chandelier with pendants. 
We were rather proud of our prison cuisine. Cook- 
ing was also performed on and in an old worn-out 
cook-stove, which a few of our millionaires, form- 
ing a joint-stock company for the purpose, had 
bought for two hundred Confederate dollars late in 
the season, and which the kind prison commander 
had permitted them to place near the southwest 
end of the upper room, running the pipe out of a 
window. Culinary operations were extensively 
carried on also in the open yard outside, about 
forty feet by twenty, at the northeast end of the 
building. Here the officer would build a diminu- 
tive fire of chips or splinters between bricks, and 
boil or toast or roast his allowance. We were 
grouped in messes of five to ten or twelve each. 
Happy the club of half a dozen that could get 



96 Lights and Shadows 

money enough and a big enough kettle to have 
their meal prepared jointly. 

Such was the case with my own group after the 
lapse of about two months. We had been pinched ; 
but one morning Captain Cook came to me with 
radiant face and said: "Colonel, I have good 
news for you. I 'm going to run this mess. My 
folks in New York have made arrangement with 
friends in England to supply me with money, and 
I've just received through the lines a hundred 
dollars. We'll live like fighting-cocks!" Adjt. 
J. A. Clark, 17th Pa. Cav., was our delighted cook. 
Shivering for an hour over the big kettle amid the 
ice and snow of the back yard, he would send up 
word, ''Colonel, set the table for dinner." To 
''set the table" consisted in sweeping a space six 
or eight feet square, and depositing there the 
plates, wood, tin, or earthen (mine was of wood; 
it had cost me a week's labor in carving). The 
officers already mentioned. Cook, Clark, Bush, 
Sprague, with Lieut. E. H. Wilder, 9th N. Y. 
Cav., sit around in the elegant Turkish fashion, or 
more classical recline like the ancients in their 
symposia, each resting on his left elbow, with face 
as near as possible to the steaming kettle, that not 
a smell may be lost ! 

Wood was scarce. It was used with most rigid 



In Confederate Prisons 97 

economy. Many joists overhead had been sawed 
off by Lieut. Lewis R. Titus of the Corps D'Afrique, 
using a notched table-knife for a saw. In this 
way the Vermont Yankee obtained pieces for 
cooking, but he weakened the structure till some 
officers really feared the roof might come tumbling 
about our heads; and I remember that the prison 
commandant, visiting the upper room and gazing 
heavenward, more than once ejaculated irreverently 
the name of the opposite region! 

Through the kindness of a Confederate officer 
or bribing the guards a log four or five feet in 
length is sometimes brought in. Two or three 
instantly attack it with a blunt piece of iron hoop 
to start the cleaving, and in less time than one 
could expect such a work to be done with axes it 
is spHt fine with wooden wedges. 

Naturally one of the ever-recurring topics 
of discussion was the glorious dishes we could 
prepare, if we but had the materials, or of which 
we would partake if we ever got home again. 
In our memorandum books we are careful to 
note down the street and number of the most 
famous restaurant in each of the largest cities, 
like Delmonico's in New York or Young's in 
Boston. 

With few exceptions one day is like another. 



98 Lights and Shadows 

At earliest dawn each of the two floors is covered 
with about a hundred and seventy-five prostrate 
forms of officers who have been trying to sleep. 
Soon some one of them calls in a loud voice. 
'' Buckets for water!'' The call is repeated. Five 
or six, who have predetermined to go early to 
the river Dan that seemed nearly a quarter of a 
mile distant, start up and seize large wooden 
pails. They pass to the lower floor. One of 
them says to the sentinel on duty at the south- 
west comer door, "Sentry, call the sergeant of the 
guard; we want to go for water." He complies. 
In five, ten, or fifteen minutes, a non-commissioned 
officer, with some half a dozen heavily armed 
soldiers, comes, the bolts slide, the doors swing, 
our squad passes out. They are escorted down 
the hill to the river, and back to prison. By this 
time it is broad daylight. Many are still lying 
silent on the floor. Most have risen. Some are 
washing, or rather wiping with wet handkerchief, 
face and hands; others are preparing to cook, 
splitting small blocks of wood for a fire of splinters ; 
a few are nibbling com bread; here and there one 
is reading the New Testament. There is no change 
or adjustment of clothing, for the night dress is the 
same as the day dress. We no longer wonder how 
the cured paralytic in Scripture could obey the 



In Confederate Prisons 99 

command, "Take up thy bed and walk"; for at 
heaviest the bed is but a blanket! 

Now, for a half-hour, vengeance on vermin 
that have plagued us during the night ! We daily 
solve the riddle of the fishermen's answer to 
"What luck?" the question which puzzled to 
death 

*' The blind old bard of Scio's rocky isle," 

^'As many as we caught we left; as many as we could 
not catch we carry with msT^ 

About eight o'clock the cry is heard from the 
southwest end of the room, "Fall in for roll-call! 
fall in!" to which several would impudently add, 
"Here he comes! here he is!" A tall, slim., stoop- 
ing, beardless, light-haired phenomenon, known as 
"the roll-call sergeant," enters with two mus- 
keteers. We officers having formed in two ranks 
on the northwest side of the room, he passes 
down the front from left to right slowly counting. 
Setting down the number in a memorandum 
book, he commands in a squeaky feminine voice, 
"Break ranks," which most of us have already 
done. Much speculation arose as to the nature 
and status of this singular being. His face was 
smooth and childlike, yet dry and wrinkled, so 
that it was impossible to tell whether he was 



100 Lights and Shadows 

fifteen or fifty. A committee was said to have 
waited upon him, and with much apparent defer- 
ence asked him as to his nativity, his age, and 
whether he was human or divine, married or single, 
man or woman. They said he answered sadly, 
"Alas! I'm no angel, but a married man, thirty- 
seven years old, from South Carolina. I have 
three children who resemble me. " 

Immediately after roll-call, com bread is brought 
in for breakfast. It is in large squares about two 
feet in length and breadth, the top of each square 
being marked for cutting into twenty or twenty- 
five rations. Colonel Hooper and Capt. D. Tarbell 
receive the whole from the rebel commissary, and 
then distribute to each mess its portion. The 
mess commissary endeavors to cut it into equal 
oblong loaves. To make sure of a fair distribution, 
one officer turns his back, and one after another 
lays his hand upon a loaf and asks, "Whose is 
this?" The officer who has faced about names 
some one as the recipient. 

Clear the way now for sweepers. From one 
end of the room to the other they ply their coarse 
wooden brooms. Some ofHcers are remarkably 
neat, and will scrape their floor space with pieces 
of glass from the broken windows ; a few are list- 
less, sullen, utterly despondent, regardless of 



In Confederate Prisons loi 

surroundings, apparently sinking into imbecility; 
the majority are taking pains to keep up an 
appearance of respectability. 

Many who have been kept awake through the 
night by cold or rheumatism now huddle around 
the stoves and try to sleep. Most of the remain- 
der, as the weeks pass, glide into something like 
a routine of occupations. For several weeks I 
spent an hour or two every day carving with a 
broken knife-blade a spoon from a block of hard 
wood. Sporadic wood-splitting is going on, and 
cooking appears to be one of the fine arts. An 
hour daily of oral exercises in French, German, 
Spanish, Latin, or Italian, under competent 
teachers, after the Sauveur or Berlitz method, 
amused and to some extent instructed many. 
Our caval y adjutant, Dutch Clark, so called from 
his skill in the ''Pennsylvania Dutch" dialect 
made perhaps a hundred familiar with the morn- 
ing salutation, ''Haben Sie gut geschlafen?'^ (''Have 
you slept well?") Lieut. Henry Vander Weyde, 
A. D. C, 1st Div., 6th Corps, the artist chum of 
our principal German instructor, amused many by 
his pencil portraits of " Slim Jim, " the nondescript 
*' roll-call sergeant" of uncertain age and gender; 
also of some of the sentries, and one or two of his 
fellow prisoners. A worn-out pack of fifty- two 



102 Lights and Shadows 

cards, two or three chess and checker boards of 
our manufacture, and twenty-four rudely carved 
checker-men and thirty- two fantastic chess-men, 
furnished frequent amusement to those who un- 
derstood the games. 

On an average once in two days we received 
about one o'clock what was called soup. We 
were told, and we believed it to be true, that all 
the rich nitrogenous portion had been carefully 
skimmed off for use elsewhere; not thrown away 
as the fresh maid threw the "scum" that formed 
on top of the milk! 

The topic of most frequent discussion was the 
prospect of an exchange of prisoners. Our would- 
be German conversationalists never forgot to 
ask, ''Haben Sie etwas gehorten von Auswechseln der 
Gefangenen?^' ("Have you heard anything of 
exchange of prisoners?") It was hard to believe 
that our government would leave us to die of 
starvation. 

At the close of the soup hour and after another 
turn at sweeping, almost every officer again sat 
down or sat up to rid himself of the peculidce vesti- 
menti. We called it "skirmishing"; it was rather 
a pitched battle. The humblest soldier and the 
brevet major-general must daily strip and fight. 
Ludicrous, were it not so abominable, was this 



In Confederate Prisons 103 

mortifying necessity. No account of prison life 
in Danville would be complete without it. Pass 
by it hereafter in sorrow and silence, as one of 
those duties which Cicero says are to be done 
but not talked about. 

The occupations of the morning are now largely 
resumed, but many prefer to lie quiet on the floor 
for an hour. 

An interesting incident that might happen at 
any time is the arrival in prison of a Confederate 
newspaper. A commotion near the stairway! 
Fifty or a hundred cluster around an officer with a 
clear strong voice, and listen as he reads aloud 
the news, the editorials, and the selections. The 
rebels are represented as continually gaining 
victories, but singularly enough the northern 
armies are always drawing nearer! 

Toward sunset many officers walk briskly half an 
hour to and fro the length of the room for exercise. 

Another roll-call by the mysterious hetero- 
geneous if not hermaphroditical Carolina sergeant ! 

Brooms again by the mess on duty. Again 
oral language-lessons by Cook and Putnam. Then 
discussions or story-telling. 

It is growing dark. A candle is lighted making 
darkness visible. We have many skilful singers, 
who every evening "discourse most excellent 



104 Lights and Shadows 

music." They sing Just before the battle, mother; 
Do they miss me at home? We shall meet, but 
we shall miss him (a song composed on the death 
of one of my Worcester pupils by Hon. Charles 
Washburn) ; Nearer, My God, to thee, etc. From 
the sweet strains of affection or devotion, which 
suffuse the eyes as we begin to lie down for the 
night, the music passes to the Star-spangled Ban- 
ner, Rally round the flag, John Brown's body lies 
a'mouldering in the grave, and the like. Often the 
** concert" concludes with a comic Dutch song by 
Captain Cafferty, Co. D, ist N. Y. Cav. 

Sleep begins to seal many eyelids, when some- 
one with a loud voice heard through the whole 
room starts a series of sharp critical questions, 
amusing or censorious, thus: 

''Who don't skirmish?" This is answered 
loudly from another quarter. 

"Slim Jim." The catechism proceeds, some- 
times with two or three distinct responses. 

''Who cheats the graveyard?" 

"Colonel Sprague." 

"Who sketched Fort Darling?" 

"Captain Tripp." (He was caught sketching 
long before, and was refused exchange.) 

"Who never washes?" 



In Confederate Prisons 105 

' ' Lieutenant Screw-my-upper-jaw-off ." (His was 
an unpronounceable foreign name.) 

''Who knows everything?" 

'' General Duffie. " (Duffie was a brave officer, 
of whom more anon.) 

"Who don't know anything?'* 

''The fools that talk when they should be 
asleep. " (The querists subside at last.) 

For warmth we lie in contact with each other 
*' spoon-fashion," in groups of three or more. I 
had bought a heavy woolen shawl for twenty 
Confederate dollars, and under it were Captain 
Cook, Adjutant Clark, and Lieutenant Wilder; I 
myself wearing my overcoat, and snuggling up to 
my friend Cook. All four lay as close as possible 
facing in the same direction. The night wears 
slowly away. When the floor seemed intolerably 
hard, one of us would say aloud, "Spoon!" and 
all four would flop over, and rest on the other side. 
So we vibrated back and forth from nine o'clock 
till dawn. We were not comfortable, but in far 
better circumstances than most of the prisoners. 
Indeed Captain Cook repeatedly declared he owed 
his life to our blanket. 



CHAPTER VIII 

Continual Hope of Exchange of Prisoners — " Flag-of-Truce 
Fever!" — Attempted Escape by Tunneling — Repeated 
Escapes by Members of Water Parties, and how we Made 
the Roll-Call Sergeant's Count Come Out all Right every 
Time — Plot to Break Out by Violence, and its Tragic End. 

Our principal hope for relief from the increas- 
ing privations of prison life and from prob- 
able exhaustion, sickness, and death, lay in a 
possible exchange of prisoners. A belief was 
prevalent that the patients in hospital would be 
the first so favored. Hence strenuous efforts were 
sometimes made to convince the apothecary 
whom we called doctor, and who often visited 
us, that a prisoner was ill enough to require 
removal. Once in the institution, the patients got 
better food, something like a bed, medical attend- 
ance daily, and a more comfortable room. Some 
of them were shamming, lying in two senses and 
groaning when the physicians were present, but 
able to sit up and play euchre the rest of the day 
and half the night. This peculiar disease, this 

eagerness to get into hospital or remain there till 

io6 



In Confederate Prisons 107 

exchanged by flag of truce, was known as the 
*'flag-of -truce fever" or " flag-of-truce-on-the- 
brain!" 

I recall one striking instance. Lieutenant Gard- 
ner, already mentioned, had received six or eight 
hundred dollars in Confederate currency as the 
price of a gold watch. But like the prodigal in 
Scripture he was now in a far country, and had 
wasted his substance in what he called "righteous'* 
living. And when he had spent all, there arose 
a mighty famine in that corner of the lower room, 
and he began to be in want. And he would fain 
have filled his belly with corn-cob-meal bread, or 
spoiled black beans, or the little potatoes which 
the swine didn*t eat. And no man gave him 
enough. And he determined to go to hospital. 
He gave out that he was desperately sick. I at 
this time had "quarters" on the floor above. 
Word was brought to me that my friend was mor- 
tally ill, and would thank me to come down and 
take his last message to his relatives. Alarmed, I 
instantly went down. I found him with two or 
three splitting a small log of wood ! 

"Gardner, I hear you are a little 'under the 
weather.'" 

"Dying, Colonel, dying!'* 



io8 Lights and Shadows 

"What appears to be your disease?" 

" Flag-o'-truce-on-the-brain ! '* 

"Ah, you've got the exchange fever?*' 

"Yes; bad." 

"Pulse run high?" 

"Three hundred a minute." 

"Anything I can do for you?" 

"Yes, Colonel, beseech that fool doctor to send 
me to hospital. Tell him I'm on my last legs. 
Tell him I only want to die there. Appeal to him 
in behalf of my poor wife and babies. " (Gardner, 
as I well knew, was a bachelor, and had no chil- 
dren — to speak of.) 

"Well, Lieutenant, I'll do anything I properly 
can for you. Is there anything else?" 

"Yes, Colonel; lend me your overcoat to wear 
to hospital; I'll send it back at once." 

"But, Lieutenant, you can't get into the hospital. 
Your cheeks are too rosy; you're the picture of 
health." 

"I'm glad you mentioned that, Colonel. I'll fix 
that. You'll see." 

Next morning he watched at the window, and 
when he saw the doctor coming, he swallowed a 
large pill of plug tobacco. The effect was more 
serious than he expected. In a few minutes he 



In Confederate Prisons 109 

became sick in earnest, and was frightened. A 
deathlike pallor supervened. When the doctor 
reached him, there was a genuine fit of vomiting. 
The story runs that Captain Tiemann made a 
pathetic appeal in behalf of the imaginary twin 
babies, that the doctor diagnosed it as a clear case 
of puerperal (which he pronounced " puerperial ") 
fever complicated with symptoms of cholera 
infantum, and ordered him to hospital at once! 
I loaned the patient my overcoat, which he sent 
back directly. His recovery seemed miraculous. 
In a week or two he returned from his delightful 
outing. This was in the latter part of November. 
Previously, for some weeks, Captain Howe and 
three or four other strong and determined officers 
managed to get into the cellar of a one-story build- 
ing contiguous to ours and thence to excavate a 
tunnel out beyond the line on which the sentinels 
were perpetually pacing to and fro. I was too 
feeble to join in the enterprise, but hoped to 
improve the opportunity to escape when the work 
was done. Unfortunately the arching top of the 
tunnel was too near the surface of the ground, and 
the thin crust gave way under the weight of a 
sentry. He yelled "Murder!" Two or three of 
our diggers came scurrying back. The guard 
next to him shouted, ''You Yanks! you G — d 



no Lights and Shadows 

d — d Yanks!" and fired into the deep hole. No 
more tunneling at Danville.^ 

More successful and more amusing were several 
attempts by individual officers one at a time. The 
water parties of four to eight went under a strong 
guard two or three times a day down a long hill to 
the river Dan. On the slope alongside the path 
were a number of large brick ovens, ^ in which, 
we were told, the Confederates used to bake those 
big squares of corn bread. The iron doors when 
we passed were usually open. On the way back 
from the river, one officer on some pretense or 
other would lag behind the rearmost soldier of the 
guard, who would turn to hurry him up. The next 
officer, as soon as the soldier's back was turned, 
would dodge into an open oven, and the careless 
guards now engaged in a loud and passionate 
controversy about slavery or secession would not 

^ "You will doubtless recall the man-hole worked through the 
heavy brick wall, made during the 'stilly nights, ' opening into the 
attic of an annex to the main building. We found our way down 
by means of a rope ladder, and started our tunnel under the 
basement floor. But for the exposure we would have emptied 
the prison. To find the way down we gave them a lively hunt ! — 
And those epithets! — I have a blouse with a rent in the back made 
in going through that hole in the wall." — Howe's Letter of Jan. 30, 
1914. 

For further particulars of this attempt to tunnel out, see Major 
Putnam's A Prisoner of War in Virginia, pp. 55-60. 

- Putnam describes them as disused furnaces. They may have 
been both. 



In Confederate Prisons iii 

miss him! Then, as night came on, the negroes 
in the vicinity, who, Hke all the rest of the colored 
people, were friendly to us, would supply the 
escaped ofificer with food and clothing, and pilot 
him on his way rejoicing toward the Union lines. 
One by one, six officers escaped in that way, and 
many of us began to look forward to the time when 
our turn would come to try the baking virtues 
of those ovens! 

But it was important that the escaped officer 
should not be missed. How should we deceive the 
nondescript that we called " the roll-call sergeant"? 
Morning and evening he carefully counted every 
one. How make the census tally with the former 
enumerations? Yankee ingenuity was here put to 
a severe test; but Lieutenant Titus, before men- 
tioned, solved the problem. With his table-knife 
saw he cut a hole about two feet square in the floor 
near the northeast comer of the upper room. A 
nicely fitting trapdoor completed the arrange- 
ment. Through this hole, helped by a rude rope 
ladder of strips of rags, and hoisted to the shoul- 
ders of a tall man by strong arms from below, a 
nimble officer could quickly ascend. Now those 
in the lower room were counted first. When 
they broke ranks, and the human automaton 
faced to the west and moved slowly towards the 



112 Lights and Shadows 

stairs with three or four "Yanks" clustering at his 
side in earnest conversation, the requisite number 
of spry young prisoners would "shin up** the 
ladder, emerge, "deploy," and be counted over 
again in the upper room! The thing worked to a 
charm. Not one of the six was missed. 

Unfortunately, however, two or three of them 
were recaptured and again incarcerated in Libby. 
The Richmond authorities thereupon telegraphed 
to Colonel Smith, asking how those officers es- 
caped from Danville. Smith, surprised, ordered 
a recount. The trapdoor did its duty. "All 
present ! " Finally he answered, "No prisoner has 
escaped from Danville." The rebel commissary 
of prisons at Richmond, Gen. J. H. Winder, then 
telegraphed the names of the recaptured officers. 
Smith looks on his books: there are those names, 
sure enough! The mystery must be solved. He 
now sends his adjutant to count us about noon. 
We asked him what it meant. He told us it was 
reported that several officers had escaped. We 
replied, "That's too good to be true." He 
counted very slowly and with extraordinary preci- 
sion. He kept his eye on the staircase as he 
approached it. Six officers flew up the ladder as 
we huddled around him. It was almost impossible 
to suppress laughter at the close, when he de- 



In Confederate Prisons 113 

clared, "I'll take my oath no prisoner has escaped 
from this prison. " But there were those names of 
the missing, and there was our ill-disguised mirth. 
Smith resorted to heroic measures. He came in 
with two or three of his staff and a man who was 
said to be a professor of mathematics. This was 
on the 8th of November, 1864. He made all 
officers of the lower room move for a half-hour 
into the upper room, and there fall in line with the 
rest. His adjutant called the roll in reality. 
Each as his name was read aloud was made to step 
forward and cross to the other side. Of course no 
one could answer for the absent six. I doubt if he 
ever learned the secret of that trap-door. The 
professor of mathematics promised to bring me 
a Geometry. About two weeks later, Novem- 
ber 24th, he brought me a copy of Davies's 
Legendre. 

On the 9th of December, while our senior officer, 
General Hayes, was sick in hospital, the next in 
rank, Gen. A. N. Duffie, of the First Cavalry 
Division of Sheridan's army, fresh from the French 
service, with which he had campaigned in Algeria, 
where he was wounded nine times, suddenly con- 
ceived a plot to break out and escape. Two com- 
panies of infantry had arrived in the forenoon 
and stacked their arms in plain sight on the level 



114 Lights and Shadows 

ground about twenty rods distant. Duffie's plan 
was to rush through the large open door when 
a water party returning with filled buckets should 
be entering, seize those muskets, overpower the 
guard, immediately liberate the thousand or 
fifteen hundred Union prisoners in the three other 
Danville prisons, and push off to our lines in East 
Tennessee. He had Sheridan's elan, not Grant's 
cool-headed strategy. With proper preparation 
and organization, such as Hayes would have 
insisted upon, it might have been a success. He 
called us, field officers about twenty, together and 
laid the matter before us. No vote was taken, but 
I think a majority were opposed to the whole 
scheme. He was disposed to consider himself, 
though a prisoner, as still vested with authority to 
command all of lower rank, and he expected them 
to obey him without question. In this view 
many acquiesced, but others dissented. By his 
request, though doubtful of his right to command 
and in feeble health, I drew up a pledge for those 
to sign who were willing to engage in the projected 
rising and would promise to obey. It was found 
that at least one hundred and fifty could be 
counted on. Colonel Ralston, previously men- 
tioned, was the chief opponent of the outbreak, but 
he recognized Duffie's authority and insisted upon 



In Confederate Prisons 115 

our submission to it. Similar appeared to be the 
attitude of the following colonels: 

Gilbert H. Prey, 104th N. Y. 

James Carle, 191st Pa. 

T. B. Kaufman, 209th Pa. 

W. Ross Hartshome, 190th Pa. 

Of the lieutenant- colonels, most of the following 
doubted the success, but would do their best to 
promote it, if commanded: 

Charles H. Tay, loth N. J. 

Theodore Gregg, 45th Pa. 

G. A. MofTett, 94th N. Y. 

J. S. Warner, 121st Pa. 

George Hamett, 147th N. Y. 

Charles H. Hooper, 24th Mass. 

Homer B. Sprague, 13th Conn. 

So the following majors: A. W. Wakefield, 49th 
Pa.; G. S. Horton, 58th Mass.; E. F. Cooke, 2d 
N. Y. Cav.; John G. Wright, 51st N. Y.; J. V. 
Peale, 4th Pa. Cav.; John W. Byron, 88th N. Y.; 
David Sadler, 2d Pa. Heavy Art.; John Byrne, 
155th N. Y.; E. O. Shepard, 32d Mass.; J. A. 
Sonders, 8th Ohio Cav.; Charles P. Mattocks, 
17th Maine; E. S. Moore, Paymaster; Wm. H. 
Fry, i6th Pa. Cav.; Milton Wendler, 191st Pa.; 
James E. Deakins, 8th Tenn. Cav.; Geo. Haven 
Putnam, Adjt. and later Bvt.-Major, 176th N. Y. 



ii6 Lights and Shadows 

All of the foregoing then present and not on the 
sick list should have been most thoroughly in- 
structed as to their duties, and should have been en- 
abled to communicate all needed information to the 
forty-six captains and one hundred and thirty- three 
lieutenants, who, though many were sadly reduced 
in vitality, were accounted fit for active service. I 
had repeatedly noticed in battle the perplexity of 
company, regimental, or even brigade commanders, 
from lack of information as to the necessary move- 
ments in unforeseen emergencies. It is not enough to 
say, as one corps commander (Hancock?) is said to 
have done during the Battle of the Wilderness in 
May, 1864, to a newly arrived colonel with his regi- 
ment, who inquired, ''Where shall I go in?" "Oh, 
anywhere; there's lovely fighting all along the line !" 

Here the step most vital to success, the sine qua 
non, was to keep that outside door open for the 
outrush of two hundred men. To this end, eight 
of our strongest and most determined, under a 
dashing leader like Colonel Hartshorne or Lieu- 
tenant-Colonel Gregg, should have been sent out 
as a water party. Instead, Captain Cook, who 
was brave enough, but then physically weak, 
hardly able to carry a pail of water, was the leader 
of an average small squad, "the spirit indeed 
willing, but the flesh weak." 



In Confederate Prisons 117 

Hardly less important was it to select a dozen 
or twenty of the most fierce and energetic, to be 
at the head of the stairs in perfect readiness to 
dash instantly through the opening door and 
assist the water party in disarming their guards, 
and, without a moment's pause, followed by the 
whole two hundred, pounce upon the guard house. 
Ralston or Duf!ie himself vshould have headed 
this band. Simultaneously, without a second's 
interval, three or four desperate, fiery, powerful 
officers, detailed for the purpose, should have 
grappled with the sentinel on duty in the middle 
of the lower room and disarmed and gagged him. 

Besides the field officers, we had with us many 
subordinates of great intelligence like Capt. 
Henry S. Burrage of the 36th Mass., Lieut. W. C. 
B. Goff of the I St D. C. Cav., Lieut. W. C. 
Howe, 2d Mass. Cav., Adjt. James A. Clark, 17th 
Pa. Cav., and the artist, Lieut. Henry Vander 
Weyde; and nothing would have been easier than 
for Duffie to communicate through them to every 
officer the most complete and precise information 
and instructions. 

Scarcely any of these precautions were taken. 
The general was impatient. The next day, Decem- 
ber loth, he issued his command in these words : " I 
order the attempt to be made, and I call upon all 



ii8 Lights and Shadows 

of you, who have not forgotten how to obey orders, 
to follow." The water party was immediately 
sent out, and its return w^as watched for. He and 
Ralston, without the help of a third, made the 
mistake of personally grappling with the floor 
sentry, a brave, strong, red-headed fellow, and 
they tackled him a moment too soon. He stoutly 
resisted. They wrested his musket from him. 
He yelled. They tried to stop his mouth. In- 
stantly the door began to swing open a little. 
The water party, too few and too weak, paralyzed, 
failed to act. The foremost of us sprang from the 
stairs to the door. Before we could reach it, it was 
slammed to, bolted and barred against us! With 
several others I rushed to the windows and tried to 
tear off the heavy bars. In vain. The soldiers 
outside began firing through the broken panes. 
Ralston was shot through the body. We assisted 
him up the stairs while the bullets were flying. 
In less than five minutes from the moment when 
he and Duffie seized the sentinel, it was all over. 
In about a quarter of an hour, Colonel Smith came 
in with his adjutant and two or three guards, and 
ordered Ralston removed to hospital. As he was 
carried out, one of us expressed the hope that 
the v/ound was not serious. He answered in the 
language of Mercutio, "No, 'tis not so deep as a 



In Confederate Prisons 119 

well, nor so wide as a church door; but 'tis enough, 
'twill serve." He knew it was mortal, and 
expressed a willingness to die for his country in the 
line of duty. He passed away next morning. 
Colonel Smith expressed sorrow for him, and sur- 
prise at the ingratitude of us who had been guilty 
of insurrection against his gentle sway ! 

A strict search for possible weapons followed 
during which we were told we must give up our 
United States money. I saved a ten-dollar green- 
back by concealing it in my mouth ''as an ape 
doth nuts in the comer of his jaw,'* all the while 
munching com bread, gnawing two holes in the bill ! 



CHAPTER IX 

Kind Clergymen Visit us and Preach Excellent Discourses — 
Colonel Smith's Personal Good Will to me — His Offer — John 
F. Ficklin's Charity — My Good Fortune — Supplies of 
Clothing Distributed — Deaths in Prison. 

Union men never looked upon Confederates 
as mortal enemies. Whenever a flag of truce 
was flying, both were disposed to shake hands 
and exchange favors. I recollect that our Cap- 
tain Burrage complained that he was unfairly- 
captured when he was engaged in a friendly deal 
with a Confederate between the lines. At Port 
Hudson, when the white signal was to go down, we 
gave the "Johnnies" fair warning, shouting, 
"rats! to your holes!" before we fired on them. 
But war cannot be conducted on peace principles, 
and in a flash a man acts like a devil. In an open 
window near the spot where I slept, an officer upset 
a cup of water, and a few drops fell on the head 
of the guard outside. Instantly he fired. The 
bullet missed, passed through the window below 
and the floor above, and lodged in the hand or arm 
of another officer. I had an opportunity to express 

120 



In Confederate Prisons 121 

to Colonel Smith my angry disgust at such sav- 
agery. He agreed that the fellow ought to be 
punished — "at least for not being able to shoot 
straighter ! " ^ 

Kindly visits were sometimes paid us. Two 
young men from the Richmond Young Men's 
Christian Association came. The wicked said, 
''One came 'to pray with us all right,' the other 
'to prey upon us all wrong'"; for the latter tried 
to induce us to exchange greenbacks for rebel 
currency ! 

Several times we were visited by kind clergy- 
men who preached excellent sermons. The first 

was Rev. Dame of Danville. He was, I think, 

an Episcopal minister. He was a high Mason, a 
gentleman of very striking appearance, with a 
beautiful flowing beard, that would have done 
honor to Moses or Aaron. As we sat on the hard 
floor, two hundred listening reverently to his choice 
language, he seemed to foresee the doom which 
many of us had begun to fear, and he very appropri- 
ately and with much earnestness bade us consider 
our latter end. Mentioning his name with grati- 
tude some thirty years afterwards in a lecture 
at the Mountain Lake Chautauqua, Md., one of 

"■ See Putnam's account of this incident in his A Prisoner of 
War in Virginia, p. 67. 



122 Lights and Shadows 

my audience gave me a photograph of the minis- 
ter's handsome face, and told me he was greatly 
beloved. I doubt not he deserved it. 

Rev. Charles K. Hall of Danville, a Methodist 
Episcopal clergyman, came to us a little later. 
His first sermon was an eloquent discourse on 
Charity. He practiced what he preached; for he 
never came empty-handed. On his first visit he 
brought armfuls of tobacco, each plug wrapped in 
a pious tract. He asked us to fall in line, for he 
had something for each. When he came to me in 
the distribution, I declined it, saying ''I never 
use tobacco in any form. " " Oh take it, " said he; 
''you read the tract, and give the tobacco to your 
neighbor." On subsequent Sundays he brought 
eggs and other delicacies for the sick. We admired 
him as a preacher, and regarded him with affection 
as a man. Secession and slavery aside, for he 
believed in the rightfulness of both, as we learned 
on arguing with him, it would be hard to find a 
more lovable character than Charles K. Hall. 
And the South was full of such, who would have 
been glad, if permitted and opportunity offered, 
to be good Samaritans, neighbors to him who had 
fallen among foes; pure, gentle, kindly spirits, to 
whom it will be said in the last great day, "I was 
an hungred and ye gave me meat ; I was sick, and 



In Confederate Prisons 123 

ye visited me; I was in prison, and ye came unto 
me." 

From the lack of sufficient and proper food, 
clothing, and exercise, the health of all suffered. 
Much of the time it was impossible to keep warm. 
The most prevalent diseases, I think, were 
rheumatism and scurvy. I suffered from both. 
An ti- scorbutics were scarce. The pain from rheu- 
matism was slight during the day; but at evening 
it began in the joints of the fingers and became 
more severe as night advanced, ascending from 
the hands to the wrists, arms, and shoulders. It 
was worst at midnight and through the small 
hours, then gradually diminished till daylight. 
The prison physician did his best to help us with 
liniment, but in those winter nights the treat- 
ment was ineffective. 

Upon the total failure of our attempt to break 
out on the loth of December, and having come 
reluctantly to the conclusion that Colonel Smith 
had told us the truth when he said that Lincoln 
and Grant would not consent to an exchange of 
prisoners, I foresaw that death was inevitable after 
a few months, perhaps a few weeks, unless the 
situation should materially change for the better. 
I determined, though without much hope of suc- 
cess, to appeal to Colonel Smith for personal 



124 Lights and Shadows 

favor. On the 15th of December I sent word to 
him that I wished an interview with him. He 
immediately sent a soldier to bring me to his 
office. He received me courteously; for he was a 
gentleman. I told him it was necessary for me, 
if I was to live much longer, that I should at least 
have better food and more of it. I asked him if 
it would not be possible for an arrangement to be 
effected whereby some of my relatives in the north 
should furnish a Confederate prisoner with food, 
clothing, and comforts, and that prisoner's rela- 
tives in the south should reciprocate by supplying 
me. He answered that it might be possible, but 
he did not know of any such southern captive's 
friends likely to respond. After a few minutes of 
silence he said : 

"Colonel Sprague, I'd like to do something for 
you, and I'll make you an offer. " 

"Well?" 1 1 

"Your government has adopted the devilish 
policy of no exchange of prisoners. " 

"I am afraid it's true." 

"I know it's true." 

"Well, what's your proposition?" 

" I am overworked here. I must do my duty to 
my government. Our cause is just. " 

"Well?" 



In Confederate Prisons 125 

"I should like to have you assist me by doing 
writing regularly for me at these headquarters. I 
would parole you. You shall have a room to your- 
self, a good bed, plenty of food, and a good deal of 
liberty. You must give me your word of honor 
not to attempt to escape. " 

"Colonel Smith, I thank you. I appreciate the 
friendly spirit in which you make the offer, and I 
am very grateful for it. But I can't conscien- 
tiously accept it. I am in the Union Army, bound 
to do everything in my power to destroy your 
government. I must do nothing to help it. If 
Lincoln refuses to exchange us prisoners, it may 
be best for the United States, though hard on us. 
What happens to us is a minor matter. It's a 
soldier's business to die for his country rather than 
help its enemies in the slightest degree. I can't 
entertain your proposal." 

So the conference ended sadly. As I was leav- 
ing his office he introduced me to a Confederate 
soldier who sat there and who had heard the whole 
conversation. Next day this soldier entered the 
prison by permission of Colonel Smith and brought 
me some nice wheat bread, some milk, pickles, and 
other food, a pair of thick woolen stockings, and a 
hundred dollars in Confederate money. He gave 
me his name, John F. FickHn, of the Virginia 



126 Lights and Shadows 

Black Horse Cavalry. He whispered to me that 
he was at heart a Union man, but had been forced 
by circumstances to enter the Confederate service; 
that by simulating illness he had got relieved from 
duty at the front and assigned to service at Colonel 
Smith's headquarters; that he was confident he 
could bring about such an arrangement for re- 
ciprocal supplies as I had proposed, and had so 
informed Smith, who approved of the plan; that 
until such a plan should be put in operation he 
would furnish me from his own table. He said 
to me very privately that he was greatly moved by 
what I had said the day before. *' But, " he added, 
"I am not entirely unselfish in this. I foresee 
that the Confederacy can't last very long; cer- 
tainly not a year. I give it till next September; 
and, frankly, when it goes to smash, I want to 
stand well with you officers." At my suggestion 
he gave a few other prisoners food and money. 

In a few days I was again called to headquarters 
to meet a Mr. Jordan, who, through Ficklin's 
efforts, had been invited to meet me. His son, 
Henry T. Jordan, Adjutant of the 55th North 
Carolina Regiment, was at that time a prisoner 
at Johnson's Island, Ohio. Mr. Jordan agreed to 
make out a list of articles which he wished my 
relatives to send to his son. In a day or two he 



In Confederate Prisons 127 

did so. I likewise made out a statement of my 
immediate wants, as follows : 

Wood for cooking; 
Cup, plate, knife, fork, spoon; 
Turnips, salt, pepper, rice, vinegar; 
Pickled cucumbers, dried apple, molasses; 
Or any other substantial food. 

I asked Jordan to send me those things at once. 
He answered after some delay that he would do so 
immediately on receiving an acknowledgment 
from his son that my friends had furnished him 
what he wanted ; and he would await such a mes- 
sage ! As my relatives were in Massachusetts and 
Connecticut, it would take considerable time for 
them to negotiate with the prison commandant 
and other parties in Ohio and have the stipu- 
lations distinctly understood and carried into 
effect there. Besides, there were likely to be 
provoking delays in communicating by mail be- 
tween the north and the south, and it might be a 
month or six weeks before he got assurances from 
his son; by which time I should probably be in a 
better world than Danville, and in no need of 
wood, food, or table-ware. I wrote him to that 
effect, and requested him to make haste, but 
received no reply. 

My friend Mr. Ficklin came to the rescue. As 



128 Lights and Shadows 

a pretext to deceive, if need were, the prison 
authorities, and furnish to them and others a 
sufficient reason for bringing me suppHes, he 
pretended that he had a friend, a Confederate 
prisoner of war at Camp Douglas near Chicago, 
and that Colonel Sprague's friends had been 
exceedingly kind to him, ministering most liber- 
ally to his wants! The name of this imaginary 
friend was J. H. Holland, a private soldier of the 
30th Virginia Cavalry. Ficklin forged a letter 
purporting to come from Holland to him, which 
he showed to Colonel Smith, in which he spoke 
with much gratitude of my friends* bounty, and 
besought Ficklin to look tenderly after my comfort 
in return! The ruse succeeded. Ficklin's gener- 
osity to me was repeated from time to time, and 
perhaps saved my life. 

A year after the close of the war Ficklin wrote 
to me that he wished to secure a position in the 
Treasury Department of the United States, and 
he thought it would aid him if I would certify 
to what I knew of his kindness to Union prisoners. 
I accordingly drew up a strong detailed statement 
of his timely and invaluable charities to us in our 
distress. I accompanied it with vouchers for my 
credibility signed by Hon. N. D. Sperry, General 
Wm. H. Russell, and President Theodore D. 



In Confederate Prisons 129 

Woolsey, all of New Haven, and Governor Wm. A. 
Buckingham of Norwich, Conn. These documents 
I forwarded to Ficklin. I do not know the result. 
From Sergeant Wilson F. Smith, chief clerk at 
Colonel Smith's headquarters, a paroled prisoner, 
member of Co. F., 6th Pa. Cav., the company 
of Captain Fumess, son or brother of my 
Shakespearian friend. Dr. Horace Howard Fumess, 
and from Mr. Strickland, undertaker, who furn- 
ished the coffins and buried the dead of the 
Danville prisons, both of whom I talked with 
when I was on parole in February, '65, I obtained 
statistics mutually corroborative of the number 
of deaths in the Danville prisons. In November 
there were 130; in December, 140; from January 
1st to January 24th, 105. The negro soldiers suf- 
fered most. There were sixty-four of them living in 
prison when we reached Danville, October 20, '64. 
Fifty- seven of them were dead on the 12 th of 
February, '65, when I saw and talked with the seven 
survivors in Prison No. Six. From one of the 
officers (I think it was Captain Stuart) paroled 
like myself in February to distribute supplies 
of clothing sent by the United States through the 
lines, and who performed that duty in Salisbury, 
and from soldiers of my own regiment there 
imprisoned, I learned that in the hundred days 



I30 Lights and Shadows 

ending February ist, out of eight or ten thousand 
prisoners, more than thirty a day, more than 
three thousand in all, had died! Of Colonel 
Hartshome's splendid "Bucktail Regiment," the 
190th Pa., formerly commanded by my Yale 
classmate Colonel O'Neil who fell at Antietam, 
there were 330 at SaHsbury, October 19th, the 
day we left; 116 of them were dead before Feb- 
ruary 1st, one company losing 22 out of 33 men. 

Why this fearful mortality? Men do not die 
by scores, hundreds, thousands, without some 
extraordinary cause. It was partly for want of 
clothing. They were thinly clad when captured. 

Pursuant to agreement entered into early in 
December, 1864, between the Federal and Con- 
federate authorities, supplies of clothing for 
Union prisoners in Richmond, Danville, and 
Salisbury, were sent through the lines. They 
did not reach Danville till February. Colonel 
Carle, 191st Pa. and myself, with another 
officer (I think he was Colonel Gilbert G. Prey, 
104th N. Y.) were paroled to distribute coats 
(or blouses), trousers, and shoes, among the 
enhsted men in their three prisons. Then for the 
first time Union officers saw the interior of those 
jails. By permission of Colonel Smith, Mr. 



In Confederate Prisons 131 

Ficklin accompanied us on one of these visits, and 
I saw him give fifty dollars in Confederate money 
to one of our suffering soldiers. My part in the 
distribution was to sign as witness opposite the 
name of each one receiving. Those rolls should be 
in the archives at Washington. 

On the 1 2th of February we issued shoes and 
clothing in the jail known as Prison No. Six. 
It contained that day 308 of our men. There 
were the seven surviving colored soldiers, and the 
one wearing our prison commander's coat. We 
requested them all to form line, and each as his 
name was called to come forward and receive 
what he most needed. Some of them were so 
feeble that they had to be assisted in coming down 
fromi the upper floor, almost carried in the arms 
of stronger comrades. Many were unable to 
remain standing long, and sank helpless on the 
floor. Nearly all were half- clad, or wearing only 
the thinnest of garments. Some were white 
with vermin. Several were so far gone that they 
had forgotten their company or regiment. Every 
one seemed emaciated. Many kept asking me 
why our government did not exchange prisoners; 
for they were told every day the truth that the 
Confederate government desired it. There was 
a stove, but no fuel. The big rooms were not 



132 Lights and Shadows 

heated. The cold was severe. About a third of 
them had apparently given up all hope of keeping 
their limbs and bodies warm ; but they kept their 
heads, necks, shoulders, and chests, carefully 
wrapped. The dismal coughing at times drowned 
all other sounds, and made it difficult to proceed 
with our work of distribution. There were two 
little fires of chips and splinters on bricks, one of 
them near the middle, the other near the far end. 
In contact with these were tin or earthen cups con- 
taining what passed for food or drink. There was 
no outlet for smoke. It blackened the hands and 
faces of those nearest, and irritated the lungs of all. 
This prison was the worst. It was colder than 
the others. But all were uncomfortably cold. 
All were filled with smoke and lice. From each 
there went every day to the hospital a wagon- 
load of half-starved and broken-hearted soldiers 
who would never return. I visited the hospital 
to deliver to two of the patients letters which 
Colonel Smith had handed to me for them. They 
were both dead. I looked down the long list. 
The word "Died," with the date, was opposite 
most of the names. As I left the hospital I 
involuntarily glanced up at the lintel, half expect- 
ing to see inscribed there as over the gate to 
Dante's Hell, 



In Confederate Prisons 133 

ALL HOPE ABANDON, YE WHO ENTER HERE! 

At the rate our enlisted men were dying at Dan- 
ville and Salisbury during the winter of 1864-65, 
all would have passed away in a few months, cer- 
tainly in less than a year; and they knew it. 

Is it any wonder that some of them, believing 
our government had abandoned them to starva- 
tion rather than again risk its popularity by 
resorting to conscription for the enrollment of 
recruits and by possibly stirring up draft riots 
such as had cost more than a thousand lives in the 
city of New York in July, 1863, accepted at last 
the terms which the Confederates constantly held 
out to them, took the oath of allegiance to the 
Confederacy, and enlisted in the rebel army? I was 
credibly informed that more than forty did it in 
Prison No. Four at Danville, and more than eleven 
hundred at Salisbury. Confederate recruiting of- 
ficers and sergeants were busy in those prisons, 
offering them the choice between death and life. 
No doubt multitudes so enlisted under the Con- 
federate flag with full determination to desert to 
our lines at the first convenient opportunity. 
Such was the case with private J. J. Lloyd, Co. 
A, of my battalion, who rejoined us in North 
CaroHna. The great majority chose to die. 



134 Lights and Shadows 

The last communication that I received from 
enlisted men of my battalion, fellow prisoners with 
me at Salisbury, whom I had exhorted not to 
accept the offers of the Confederates, but to be 
true to their country and their flag, read thus: 
''Colonel, don't be discouraged. Our boys all 
say they'll starve to death in prison sooner than 
take the oath of allegiance to the Confederacy." 
And true to this resolve did indeed starve or freeze 
to death Sergeant Welch, Sergeant Twichell, 
Privates Vogel, Plaum, Barnes, Geise, Andrews, 
Bishop, Weldon, who had stood by me in many a 
battle, and who died at last for the cause they 
loved. 

It is comparatively easy to face death in battle. 
No great courage or merit in that. The soldier 
is swept along with the mass. Often he cannot 
shirk if he would. The chances usually are that 
he will come out alive. He may be inspired with 
heroism. 

And the stern joy which warriors feel 
In foeman worthy of their steel. 

There is a consciousness of irresistible strength 
as he beholds the gleaming lines, the dense columns, 
the smoking batteries, the dancing flags, the 
cavalry with flying feet. 



In Confederate Prisons 135 

'Twere worth ten years of peaceful life, 
One glance at their array. 



Or nobler, he feels that he represents a nation or 
a grand cause, and that upon his arm depends 
victory. In his enthusiasm he even fancies him- 
self a vicegerent of the Almighty, commissioned 
to fight in His cause, to work His will, to save His 
earth from becoming a hell. ''From the heights 
of yonder pyramids, " said Napoleon to the French 
battling against the Mamelukes, "forty centuries 
are looking down upon you." Our soldier in 
battle imagined the world looking on, that for 
him there was fame undying; should he fall 
wounded, his comrades would gently care for 
him; if slain, his country's flag would be his 
shroud. 

By no such considerations were our imprisoned 
comrades cheered. Not in the glorious rush and 
shock of battle; not in hope of victory or fadeless 
laurels; no angel charities, or parting kiss, or 
sympathetic voice bidding the soul look heaven- 
ward while the eye was growing dim; no dear 
star-spangled banner for a winding sheet. But 
wrapped in rags; unseen, unnoticed, dying by 
inches, in the cold, in the darkness, often in 
rain or sleet, houseless, homeless, friendless, on the 



136 Lights and Shadows 

hard floor or the bare ground, starving, freezing, 
broken-hearted. 



O the long and dreary winter! 
O the cold and cruel winter! 



It swept them away at Salisbury by tens, twenties, 
even fifties in a single night. 

These men preferred death to dishonor. When 
we are told that our people are not patriotic, or 
sigh of America as Burke did of France a century 
and a quarter ago, that the age of chivalry is gone, 
we may point to this great martyrdom, the bright- 
est painting on the darkest background in all our 
history — thousands choosing to die for the 
country which seemed to disown them! 

My diary records, and I believe it correct, that 
on the 17th of February, there were ten deaths 
in the Danville prisons. A little before midnight 
of that day the Danville prisoners were loaded 
into box cars, and the train was started for Rich- 
mond. Three, it was reported, died in the cars 
that night, and one next morning in the street on 
the way to Libby. 

During the next three days I obtained the 
autographs of two hundred and fifteen of my 
fellow officers there. The Httle book is precious. 



In Confederate Prisons 137 

A few still survive; but the great majority have 
joined the faithful whom they commanded. 

On Fame's eternal camping ground 

Their silent tents are spread, 
And Glory guards with solemn round 

The bivouac of the dead! 

On the twenty-second we were taken for ex- 
change down the James. As we passed through 
the lines into what we were accustomed fondly to 
call "God's Country," salvos of artillery and signs 
of universal rejoicing greeted us. Our reception 
made us imagine for an hour that our arrival 
perceptibly heightened the general joy of the 
Washington anniversary. But many of us could 
not help wishing we were asleep with the thou- 
sands who were filling nameless graves at Danville 
and Salisbury. 



CHAPTER X 

Results and Reflections — The Right and the Wrong of it All. 

A FEW days of waiting in the buildings of the 
Naval Academy at Annapolis while exchange 
papers were preparing gave us opportunity for a 
much-needed transformation. Our old clothing, 
encrusted with dirt and infested with vermin, 
in many cases had to be destroyed. One of our 
number especially unkempt, Captain T., who gave 
up for an hour or two his beloved trousers, found 
to his surprise and horror when he called for their 
return that they had been burned with four hun- 
dred dollars in greenbacks sewed up in the lining ! 
We smiled at his irrepressible grief; it was poetic 
justice. He had carefully concealed the fact of 
his being flush, pretending all along to be like 
the rest in forma pauperis, and contriving, it was 
said, to transfer in crooked ways our pennies into 
his pockets! 

Fumigated, parboiled, scrubbed, barbered, de- 
cently clothed, "the deformed transformed" were 

138 



In Confederate Prisons 139 

once more presentable in civilized society. Then 
followed a brief leave of absence if desired, to visit 
relatives. To them it seemed a veritable resur- 
rection after our months of living burial ; yet the 
joy of reunion was sometimes tinged with sorrow. 
I learned that in the very week in which the tidings 
of my capture came our home circle had been 
sadly broken by the death of a beloved sister, and 
just then the telegraph told of the loss by fever 
in the army at Newbem of our household 
darling. 

Younger by fifteen years than myself, 
Brother at once and son. 



As previously stated we who held commissions 
fared better on the whole than the non-com- 
missioned officers and privates, though receiving 
from the commissary rations exactly equal to 
theirs. Commonly older and therefore of larger 
experience and superior intelligence, a good 
officer is as a father looking out for the physical 
welfare of his men as well as himself. Then there 
were some who, like Gardner, had been fortunate 
in keeping clothing, money, or other valuable at the 
instant of capture or in hiding it when searched by 
Dick Turpin at Libby. Several like Captain Cook 



I40 Lights and Shadows 

had obtained pecuniary assistance from influential 
friends across the lines, or in a few instances had 
been favored by brother freernasons or by chari- 
tably disposed visitors who gave us a little food, a 
few old books, or even Confederate currency. 
Several sold to the sentinels watches, rings, chains, 
breast-pins, society badges, silver spurs, military 
boots, or curiously wrought specimens of Yankee 
ingenuity carved with infinite pains. The "John- 
nies" appeared to hanker for any article not pro- 
duced in the Confederacy. An officer of the 
guard offered Putnam three hundred dollars for 
a nearly worn-out tooth-brush ! 

The educational standard among our officers 
was quite respectable. I think that West Point 
had a representative among us, as well as Bowdoin 
and several other colleges. Certainly we had 
ex-students from at least five universities, Brown, 
Yale, Harvard, the Sorbonne, and Gottingen. 

To afford diversion and as an antidote to depres- 
sion, as well as for intellectual improvement, some 
of us studied mathematics ' or Shakespeare, Three 
or four classes were formed in modem languages. 



* I still possess the copy of Davies's Legendre which I bought on 
the 8 th of November for twenty Confederate dollars, and of 
which I memorized three books in prison. As to the Shakespeare, 
see ante, p. 85. 



In Confederate Prisons 141 

We had card-playing with packs soiled and worn ; 
checkers and chess on extemporized boards with 
rudely whittled ''pieces"; occasional discussions 
historical, literary, political, or religious; many 
of us quite regular physical exercises in brisk 
walks on the empty lowest floor; story-telling; 
at times, though not often, the reading aloud of 
a Confederate newspaper, to a group of fifty or 
more listeners; at evening, sweet singing, riddles, 
jests, or loud-voiced sarcastic conundrums and 
satirical responses. Many found interest and 
pleasure in carving with the utmost nicety wood 
or bone. ^ 

Something like military discipline prevailed 
among the two hundred in the upper room where 
the superior rank of General Hayes was often 
recognized. Among a hundred and fifty or more 
in the lower room, where for a month or two I 
was the senior but was unwilling to assume pre- 
cedence, I secured with the aid of Major Byron, 
Captain Howe, and a few others a sort of civil 
government with semi-military features. 

These measures and the favoring circumstances 



^ I retain with pride the wooden spoon which did me good ser- 
vice when I was in limbo. It cost me over two weeks' labor in 
shaping it with half a knife-blade and pieces of broken glass. 
For the little block of wood I paid the sentry one ** rebel dollar!" 



142 Lights and Shadows 

that have been mentioned tended of course to 
the preservation of health among the officers. 
There was severe suffering from hunger, cold, 
rheumatism, and scurvy, from all of which I was 
for weeks a victim and at one time seemed doomed 
to perish. I recall, however, the names of but two 
officers (there were said to be four) who died at 
Danville. Some of us, though enfeebled, were 
soon able to rejoin our commands; as Putnam 
his at Newbern in April, Gardner and I ours at 
Morehead City the day after Lee's surrender at 
Appomattox. 

Of the effect in after-life of these strange experi- 
ences it is safe to say that to some extent they were 
a spur to intellectual effort. At least they should 
have made all sadder and wiser ; and they certainly 
were in some cases an equipment for descriptive 
authorship. Major (Adner A.) Small wrote a valu- 
able account of prison life. Dr. Burrage's narratives 
of his capture and its results are entertaining 
and instructive. Major Putnam's A Prisoner of 
War in Virginia (reprinted in his Memories of My 
Youth) is an important contribution to our military 
history. ^ Lieutenant Estabrooks's Adrift in Dixie 

^ Many years after the war he rendered financial aid to fellow 
prisoners, his chum, artist Vander Weyde, and General Hayes. 
Author of several valuable works, he is now head of the publishing 
house of G. P. Putnam's Sons. 



4 _5 



In Confederate Prisons 143 

is charmingly told.' "Dutch Clark" (Adjutant 
James A. Clark, 17th Pa. Cav.), one of the four 
who nightly tried to sleep under my blanket, started 
and edited with ability at Scranton The Public 
CodCj for which I was glad to furnish literary 
material. He afterwards became prominent in 
theosophic circles. Others distinguished them- 
selves. Captain (Frank H.) Mason, in prison our 
best chess player, was long Consul-General at 
Paris. Cook studied five or six years in Germany, 
France, and Italy, then was for eight or ten years 
assistant professor in German at Harvard, and 
afterwards for two years, until his untimely death, 
professor in the same department at the In- 
stitute of Technology in Boston. In addressing a 
Sunday-school in Brooklyn, 1871, I unexpectedly 
lighted upon Captain Tiemann doing good work 
as a teacher. Captain Gardner continued for 
many months a model military officer in Georgia. "" 

^ It was a special pleasure after the lapse of fifty years to meet 
Estabrooks at the Massachusetts Commandery of the Loyal 
Legion, where, without knowing of his presence, I had just made 
honorable mention of him in an address on prison life. 

2 In my own case the prison experience was peculiar : it changed 
the course of my whole subsequent life. I had studied law, been 
admitted to the bar in two states, and "practiced" with fair suc- 
cess, "though," as a friend was accustomed to remark, "not 
enough to do much harm!" Many times one of the best men I 
ever knew, my father, had said to me at parting, " Do all the good 
you can." Much meditating while in the army and especially 



144 Lights and Shadows 

I remained in the service a full year, often on courts- 
martial, military commissions, and "reconstruc- 
tion" duty. 

As already described, the condition of the 
enlisted men strongly contrasted with ours. The 
Report of the Confederate Inspector of Prisons 
now on file in the War Records of our government, 
though the reports of his subordinate officers are 
significantly missing, covers the few months next 
preceding January, 1865. It sharply censures 
the immediate prison authorities, stating, as 
the result of the privations, that the deaths at 

while in prison, I finally resolved to pursue an educational career. 
Of course I felt sadly the loss of years of study that might have 
better equipped me; but it seemed a duty. I had had some 
experience which, I thought, proved me not wholly unquali- 
fied. While a student in college and while reading law I had 
partly supported myself by giving instruction to private pupils 
and in the schools of General Russell and Mayor Skinner. After- 
wards, before the war, I had taught Greek in the Worcester 
(Mass.) Academy; and English literature, Greek, and Latin for 
more than three years as principal of the Worcester public 
high school. I knew the vocation would be congenial. So I 
became principal of a state normal school, of two high schools, 
of a large academy; house chairman of a (Conn.) legislative 
committee securing the enactment of three school measures of 
importance; later, president of a college, professor in a theo- 
logical seminary and in Cornell University; founder and for 
three years first president of the earliest and long the largest 
of the world's general summer schools (which now in the United 
States number nearly 700); lecturer in many Chautauqua as- 
semblies, colleges, vacation schools, and university extension 



In Confederate Prisons 145 

Danville were at the rate of about five per day! 
I think they were more numerous in January and 
February. None of my battalion were there, but 
at Salisbury three-sevenths of them died in less 
than three months! 

It is hard to refrain from the expression of 
passionate indignation at the treatment accorded 
to our non-commissioned officers and privates 
in those southern hells. For years we were 
accustomed to ask, **In what military prison of 
the north, in what common jail of Europe, in 
what dimgeon of the civilized or savage world, 
have captives taken in war — nay, condemned 
criminals — been systematically exposed to a linger- 

centres; President of the State XJniversity of North Dakota; 
editor, with biographic sketches and copious notes, of many- 
masterpieces as text-books in higher Enghsh literature; author 
of a history of my regiment; also, of a treatise on Voice and 
Gesture, of many monographs and magazine articles mostly 
educational; associate founder and first president of The 
Watch and Ward Society; one of the directors and executive 
committee of the American Peace Society; director of the Massa- 
chusetts Peace Society; president of The American Institute of 
Instruction; translator, annotator, and essayist of The Book of 
Job; etc. 

It may be proper to add that among those indebted in some 
degree to my instruction or training were several who captured 
Yale's highest prize for rhetorical excellence (the hundred dollar 
gold medal of which I was the first recipient) : one college presi- 
dent; six college professors; three university presidents; two 
governors of states ; two United States Senators ; and many others 
eminent as clergymen, authors, judges, editors, and business 
men. 



146 Lights and Shadows 

ing death by cold and hunger? The foulest felon 
— his soul black with sacrilege, his hands reeking 
with parricide — has enough of food, of clothing, of 
shelter; a chair to sit in, a fire to warm him, a 
blanket to hide his nakedness, a bed of straw to 
die on!" 

But listen a moment to the other side. Alex- 
ander H. Stephens, Vice-President of the Confed- 
eracy, afterwards for eight years a representative 
in our Congress, a man of unquestioned integrity, 
shows in his War between the States (pub. 1868- 
70) by quotation from the Report of our then 
Secretary of War (July 19, 1866) that only 22,576 
Federal prisoners died in Confederate hands 
during the war, whilst 26,436 Confederate prison- 
ers died in Federal hands. He shows also from 
the United States Surgeon-General Joseph K. 
Barnes's Report that the number of Federal 
prisoners in southern prisons was about 270,000, 
but the number of Confederate prisoners in north- 
em prisons was about 220,000; so that the per- 
centage of deaths in southern prisons was under 
nine, while the percentage of deaths in northern 
prisons was over twelve!^ 

^ The higher death-rate (if that be conceded) of southern 
soldiers is easily accounted for. The northern soldiers had been 
carefully selected by competent surgeons. They were physically 



In Confederate Prisons 147 

Had there been, from the first, prompt exchanges 
of prisoners between the north and the south, few 
of these forty-nine thousand lives would have 
been lost. Who, then, blocked the exchange ? 

Stephens declares {War between the States, vol. 
ii): 

" It is now well understood to have been a part of the 
settled policy of the Washington authorities in con- 
ducting the war, not to exchange prisoners. The 
grounds upon which this extraordinary course was 
adopted were, that it was humanity to the northern 
men in the field to let their captured comrades perish 
in prison rather than to let an equal number of Con- 
federate soldiers be released on exchange to meet them 
in battle." 

To the same effect our Secretary Stanton in one 
of his letters in 1864 pointed out ''that it would 
not be good policy to send back to be placed on the 
firing line 70,000 able-bodied Confederates, and 
to receive in exchange men who, with but few 
exceptions, were not strong enough to hold their 
muskets." 

perfect, or nearly so. They were in the bloom of early manhood 
or the strength of middle age — not an old man among them, not a 
diseased man among them, not a broken-down constitution 
among them. But multitudes of the southern, enrolled by con- 
scription, were physically unfit. Many were much too old or too 
young. Said our General Grant, "To fill their ranks, they have 
robbed the cradle and the grave!" 



148 Lights and Shadows 

The responsibility, then, for this refusal and the 
consequent enormous sacrifice of life with all the 
accompanying miseries, must rest in part upon 
the Government of the United States. ^ 

Blame not the tender-hearted Lincoln for this. 

Did he not judge wisely? Was it not best for 
the nation that we prisoners should starve and 
freeze? 

The pivotal question for him and Grant and 
Stanton was, "Shall we exchange and thereby 
enable the South to reinforce their armies with 
fifty to a hundred thousand trained soldiers? 

"If yes, then we must draft many more than 
that; for they being on the defensive we must 
outnumber them in battle. If no, then we must 
either stop their cruelties by equally cruel retali- 
ation, as Washington hung Andre for the execution 
of Hale, or we must, more cruelly still, leave 
myriads of our soldiers to sink into imbecility and 
death." 

The North had not the excuse of destitution 



* The exchange is said to have been stopped in 1862-63 by the 
refusal of the Confederates to give up captured negro soldiers in 
return for southern captives in the North, the United States 
properly insisting upon perfect equality in the treatment of 
black and white. But early in 1864, if not previously, the 
Confederates yielded the point and were anxious to surrender 
man for man. 



In Confederate Prisons 149 

which the South had, and it could not bring itself 
to make reprisals in kind. To draft again, as 
evinced in the terrible riots of July, 1863, would 
have been extremely unpopular and perhaps 
overthrown the administration and defeated the 
policy of the government. To exchange would 
pretty surely have prolonged the war, and might 
have resulted in permanent disunion. 

As to the right or wrong of the refusal to ex- 
change, it is hardly relevant to insist that the 
triumph of the South would have perpetuated 
slavery. Lincoln's Proclamation, January i, 1863, 
did not touch slavery in the Border States. And 
from the southern nation, denuded of slaves by 
their escape to the North and confronted by the 
growing an ti- slavery sentiment of the civilized 
world, the ''pecuHar institution" would soon 
have died out. 

Need we attempt, as is often done, to justify 
our government's attitude in this matter by 
affirming that the nation was in a life-and-death 
struggle for its very existence? Did that exist- 
ence depend upon its territorial limits? Would it 
have gone to pieces if the victorious North had 
relinquished its hold on the defeated South? Had 
a boundary line been drawn half-way across the 
continent, separating the twenty- three loyal 



I50 Lights and Shadows 

States from the eleven seceding, the twenty-two 
millions of the North from the nine or ten millions 
of the South, would it not have remained a mighty 
nation with no cause for further disunion, and able 
as the war had shown to place in the field more 
than two million fighting men? 

Is it not equally unnecessary to urge, as if it 
were a valid excuse for our government's refusal 
to exchange, that between the two nations there 
would have been frequent if not perpetual hostili- 
ties? Why so, any more than between the United 
States and Canada, where for fifty (it is now a 
hundred) years, along a boundary line of thirty- 
eight hundred miles, there had been unbroken 
peace and no fort nor warship? 

Let us not raise the question whether Lincoln 
made a colossal blunder when he renounced his 
favorite doctrine so emphatically set forth in his 
Congressional speech (page 47). The die was cast 
when Sumter was fired on. The question which 
confronted him in 1863-64 — What to do with the 
perishing Union prisoners? — was simply one of 
military necessity. 

According to the ethics of war was he not fully 
justified in sacrificing us rather than imperiling 
the great cause which he had at heart? 

Are we, then, to blame President Davis, or the 



In Confederate Prisons 151 

Confederate Commissioner Robert Ould, or 
Gen. John H. Winder, Superintendent of Mil- 
itary Prisons, for allowing the Federal prisoners 
to starve and freeze and die by thousands? Must 
we not admit the truth of their contention that 
their soldiers needed the food, clothing, and medi- 
cal care for want of which their prisoners were 
suffering? And if the shocking conditions at An- 
dersonville, Salisbury, Danville, and other prisons 
could easily have been avoided, or even if they 
were made more distressing by the deliberate in- 
humanity of those in immediate charge, ought 
not such facts to have intensified a desire on 
the part of both governments to effect a speedy 
exchange? 

The southern people were threatened with sub- 
jugation, their government with annihilation. 
In such a critical situation, what measures are 
allowable? 

We endeavor to look at the matter from both 
standpoints. 

This brings up the whole question of the right- 
fulness of war. If it must be waged, is success 
the highest duty? If military necessity demands, 
may any and every law of God and man be dis- 
regarded ? 

While we write these concluding pages, the 



152 In Confederate Prisons 

European conflict is raging, and the voice of the 
most warlike nation on the globe is heard continu- 
ally affirming that war is useful and highly honor- 
able, and that any means, however frightful, if nec- 
essary to ensure or hasten victory is praise- worthy ! 

Then both presidents were right ! 

But is not international war murder on a great 
scale? It is glorious to die for one's country; but 
how about killing for our country? killing inno- 
cent men, too? for the soldiers on either side 
honestly believe they are doing their duty in shoot- 
ing and stabbing as many as possible! "The 
business of war," said John Wesley, "is the busi- 
ness of devils." So it would seem ; but at heart few 
are enemies, none devils. 

It has been a pleasure in this narrative to record 
instances of a very different spirit. Surely, in 
proportion to population such were not fewer 
in the South than in the North. Like Whittier*s 
Angels of Buena Vista they rescue us from pessim- 
ism. They are prophetic of a better day. 

Not wholly lost, O Father, is this evil world of ours! 
Upward through the blood and ashes spring afresh 

the Eden flowers : 
From its smoking hell of battle. Love and Pity send 

their prayer. 
And still thy white-winged angels hover dimly in 

our air! 



APPENDIX 

(From the original record. See p. 88.) 

Proceedings of a Court Martial convened at 
Danville Mil. Pris. by virtue of the following Order: 
Danville Mil. Prison, Oct. 29, 1864. 

General Order 

No. I. 

Pursuant to the Regulations adopted by the Union 
Officers of the 2d Floor Military Prison, Danville, Va., 
Oct. 26, 1864, a Court Martial is hereby appointed to 
convene at 10 o'clock a.m. on the 29th inst. or as soon 
thereafter as may be practicable, for the Trial of 
Captain [I omit from the record the name of the 
accused], 104th N. Y. Vols., and such other officers 
as may be brought before it. 

Detail for the Court. 

Lt. Col. W. A. Leach, [Here follow the names 

90th P. V. of Captains Bryant, 

Lt. Col. Theo. Gregg, Black, Clapp, Burkart, 

45th P. V. Weiss (?), Reilly (?), 

Major J. W. Byron, Moody, and the name 

88th N. Y. V. of the Judge Advocate, 

Capt. G. M. Dickerman, Lt. and Adjt. James A. 

26th Mass. V. Clark, 17th Pa. Cav.] 

By order of the Officers of the 2d Floor, 
James Carle, 
Col. 190th Pa. Vols., Senior Officer. 
153 , 



154 Appendix 

Danville Mil. Prison, Va., io o'clock a.m., 31st, 
Oct. 1864. 

The Court met pursuant to the foregoing order. 
Present all the members. The Court then proceeded 
to the trial of Capt. [we again omit the name of the 
accused], 104th N. Y. Vols. 

The Judge Advocate stated that he had acquainted 
the accused of the order convening the Court, to 
which he replied in the words following, to wit : "What 
is that to do with me? I recognize no authority 
in this prison to convene a court martial," or words 
to that effect. 

The accused having refused to appear, the members 
of the Court were duly sworn by the Judge Advocate, 
and the Judge Advocate was duly sworn by the Presi- 
dent of the Court. The accused, Capt. [again we 
omit the name], 104th N. Y. Vols., was arraigned on 
the following charges and specifications : 

Charge — Conduct unbecoming an officer and a 
gentleman. 

Specification — In this: That Capt. [we again 
omit], 104th N. Y. Vols., without provocation, did say 
in the hearing of several officers to Lieut. Col. Homer 
B. Sprague, 13th C. V., speaking in coarse and ungentle- 
manly manner the words following, to wit: [here 
we omit the language uttered as being too vile and 
filthy to print]; that he did several times repeat 
the same in a coarse and angry tone, and used other 
vulgar and indecent expressions in an insulting tone 
and manner. This at Danville Mil. Prison, Va., 
in the lower room thereof on the 29th day of October, 
1864. 

The accused refusing to appear, the Judge Advocate 



Appendix 155 

was directed by the President to enter the plea of 
Not Guilty. 

To the Specification, Not Guilty. 

To the Charge, Not Guilty. 

Lieut. G. C. Wilson, 2d P. Artillery, and Lieut. 
Wm. Shuler, 107th P. Vols., witnesses for the pro- 
secution, stated that they had cognizance of the facts 
set forth in the Specification. 

The proceedings of the Court having been reviewed 
by the Judge Advocate, he submitted the case without 
argument. The Court was then cleared for delibera- 
tion, and having maturely considered the evidence 
adduced find the accused 

On the Specification, Guilty; with the exception of 
the words "and used other vulgar and indecent 
expressions. " 

Of the Charge, Guilty. And do therefore sentence 
him to be reprimanded by the Senior Officer. 

The Court is thus lenient owing to this being the 
first case of the kind brought before it. 

Wm. a. Leach, Lt. Col. 90th Regt. Pa. Vols., Pres.; 
Jas. a. Clark, Adjt. 17th Pa. Cavalry, Judge 
Advocate. 

The Proceedings and Findings in the foregoing case 
are hereby respectfully submitted to Brig.-Gen. Hayes 
for his consideration. 

James Carle, Col. 191st Pa. Vols., Senior Officer, 
2d Floor. 

Confed. Mil. Prison, Danville, Va., Nov. i, 1864. 

The Proceedings and Findings of the Court Martial 

of which Lt. Col. W. A. Leach, 90th Pa. Vols., was 



156 Appendix 

President, having been submitted to Brig.-Gen. 
Hayes, the Senior Officer present, are approved. The 
extreme leniency of the Court must be apparent to all, 
and can only be excused by the novelty of the case 
brought before it. Language fails to convey censure 
adequate to the gross vulgarity and ungentlemanly 
conduct of the accused. Captain [we omit the name] 
seems to forget or misconceive his responsibility in his 
present circumstances. An officer being a prisoner 
of war is not relieved from his responsibility to his 
government nor from his liability to the regulations of 
the service as far as may be applied to his dishonor by 
ungentlemanly and unofficer-like conduct; and many 
other offenses committed by an officer when a prisoner 
of war are as punishable as if that officer were serving 
with his command. And it is well the officers in the 
prison have organized a Court for the summary pun- 
ishment of those of their number, who, forgetful of 
their position and their honor, would bring shame 
upon themselves and their associates. 

It is to be hoped that Capt. [name we omit]'s con- 
duct in the future will be such as will cause to be 
forgotten his mistakes of the past. 

Joseph Hayes, Brig. Gen. U. S. Vols. 



INDEX 



Adams, Dr. Nehemiah, 29 
Adams, Sarah F., quoted, 35 
ambulance, 37, 38 
annihilation threatened, 23 
apothecary doctor, 108, 109 
Appendix, court record, 153- 

156 
applejack, 39 
Army of West Va., 4, 5, 6 
artillery, trained on us, 51, 58 
at in "Where is he at?" 73, 75 
attempt to break out, 113, 118 
autographs, officers', 136 



B 



Barnes, J. K., Surgeon-Gen., 

146 
battle, pomp of, 8, 134 
battlefield, Winchester, 3-f- 
beans, soup of, ration, 44, 94, 

102 
Beecher, Henry Ward, quoted, 

30 
Beecher, married by, 52 
Berryville, 3 
Berryville pike, 3, 4, 7 
Birge, Gen. H. W., 7, 9 
blanket for several, 105 
blankets "confiscated," 46 
blankets, not to be shaken, 87 
Blinn, Col. C. D., ill, 7 
Blue Ridge, i, 35. 36 
Braxton's Confed. artillery, 9 
bread, corn-cob-meal, 44, 93, 

100 
breakfast at Staunton, 32, 33 



breakfast at Tom's Brook, 21 
Breckenridge, Confed. Gen., 5 
Brinton, Col., escape of, 26, 27 
brooms in prison, 100, 102 
Brown, John, defended, 28 
Brownell, H. H., quoted, 137 
Browning, Mrs., quoted, 36, 

83,91 
buckets for water, 98, no, 116 
Buckingham, Gov. of Conn., 

7, 129 
"Bucktail Regiment," 64, 130 
burning I400, 138 
Burrage, Major H. S., 117, 

120, 142 
Bush, Lieut. W. W., 93, 96 
"Butler's dandy regiment," 

7 (note) 
Byron, Lord, quoted, 28 
Byron, Major John W., 87 
Byrne, Major John, 64, 66, 141 



cards, playing, 102, 106, 141 
Carle, Col. James, 64, 66, 80 
carving in prison, 49, 83, loi, 

141 
cavalry, 4, 5, 6, 13, 25, 34, 40, 45 
chaplain, prisoner, 57, 58, 80 
charge, Gordon's brilliant, 10, 

12 
Chautauqua, Mountain Lake, 

121 
checkers, 92, 102, 141 
Cheever, Dr. Geo. B., 29 
chess, 92, 102, 141 
choosing death, 124, 125, 133, 

134, 136, 143, 153 



157 



158 



Index 



Clarke, Adjt. James A., 22, 96, 

loi, 117, 143, 153 
clergymen's visits, 121, 122 
Clover, in it at night, 47 
coal, poor and scanty, 79 
coal dust, very fine! 48 
cold, severe and fatal, 79, 132, 

142 .. ^ 

communication, finger signs, 

65. 70 
communication, secret, 43, 70 
Confederate currency, 27, 32, 

33. 34. 94, 121, 140 
Cook, Capt. William, 58, 85, 

96, 103, 105, 143 
cooking, how and where, 21, 95 
Constitution, U. S., 29, 39, 47 
Corcoran, Gen. Michael, 53 
corn-cob-meal bread, 44, 93, 

100, 107 
corn-cob-meal soup, 94, 102 
court martial in prison, 88; and 

Appendix, 153 
Crew, John, a kind enemy, 28 
Crook,, Gen. George, 4 



daily routine, Danville, 97- 

105, 140, 141 
Dame, Rev., preaches to us, 121 
Dan river, 79, 98 
Danville, arrival at, 47, 48; 

again, 77 
Danville death record, 129, 132, 

142, 144 
Danville prisons, 98, 129 
Davies's Legendre, 140 (note) 
Davis, Jefferson, 150 
Davis, Lieut., death of, 57, 58, 

68 
dead lines, Salisbury, 54 
deaf-and-dumb alphabet, 65, 

70 
deaths at Salisbury, 55, 130, 

134, 136, 145 
deaths of Confederates in 

northern prisons, 146 
deaths at Danville, 129, 132, 

13^, 145 



Declaration of Independence, 

47 
defile, Berryville, 3, 4, 7 
devastation by Sheridan, 2, 3 
diary kept, 22, 28, 44 
Dickerman, Capt. G. M., 32 
discussion with Lieut. Howard, 

28, 29, 30 
discussions in prison, 47, 90, 91, 

102, no, 141 
distribution of rations, 54, 100 
Dolan, pitied by Confederate 

ladies, 37 
DufTfi6, Gen. O. N., 113-117 
Dwight, Gen. William, 12, 13 



E 



Early, Gen. Jubal A., 5, 9, 14, 

17 

Edenburg village, 26 
education in prison, 69, 70, 91, 

92, 140 
Eighth Corps, W. Va. Army, 

4. 5, 6 
Election votes in prison, 90 
Emerson, Rev., prison chaplain, 

58,80 
enlist or die, choice to, 133, 134 
Epaminondas, strategy at 

Leuctra, 10 
"escape on the brain," 67 
escapes attempted, 26, 50, no 
Estabrooks, Lieut. H. L., 72, 

74, 142, 143 (note) 
exchange of prisoners, 83, 89, 

102, 131 
exchange blocked, 89, 90, 106, 

107, 124, 131, 147-151 



Ficklin, J. P., his kindness, 

125-129,131 
Fisher, First Sea Lord, quoted, 

57 
Fisher's Hill, battle, 25 
Fisher's Hill reached, 20 
" flag-of-truce fever," 106, 107, 

108 



Index 



159 



fleas, wicked, 27 

flour ration, how cooked, 21 

Fontleroy, Dr., his hospitahty, 

32,33 
freemasonry, very useful, 38, 

40, 42, 46 
French, oral lessons in, 69, 70 
Fry, Major W. H., 85 
fugitive slave law, 29, 30 
fun, critical and sarcastic, 104, 

105 

fun, sanitary, 79, 80 
furnace way of escape, no 
Furness, Horace Howard, 129 



Gardner, Adjt. W. C, 69, 70, 
71, 74, 85, 107, 108, 109, 
142, 143 

Gee, Confed. Major, 52, 53, 56, 

^74i7v 

German, oral lessons in, 92 
Ghost in Hamlet, 85, 86 
"God's Country," 137 
God's fugitive slave law, 29 
"going through" prisoners, 22 
Gordon, Confed. Gen. J. B., 5, 

10, 17 
Gordon's brilliant charge, 10, 

gorge of Berry ville pike, 3, 4, 10 
gorilla or guerilla, which? 39, 

40 
grain cars at Danville, 48 
Grant's merciless orders, 2 
Greek Testament, kept, 42; 

stolen, 80 
greenbacks burned, 138 
greenbacks, relative value of, 

23,24,41, 140 
Greensboro, N. Carolina, 48 
Gregg, Lieut. -Col. Theodore, 

64,85 
Grover, Gen. Cuvier, 5, 6, 8, 12 
guerilla, " I'm a guerilla," 59 
guerilla, Morgan's, a kind 

gentleman, 34 
gun cotton, cushion suspected, 

45,46 



H 



hake, issued in rations, 94 
Hall, Rev. Charles K., kind, 

122 
Hamlet, rehearsal, 85, 86 
Handy, Lieut., aide to Moli- 

neux, II 
Hartshorne, Col. W. Ross, 64, 

66, 67, 68, 115, 130 
Haslett, Capt., Provost Mar- 
shal, 26, 37, 38 

Haurand, Major August, 22, 66 
Hayes, Gen. Joseph, 53, 61, 65, 

67, 92, 141 

Hayes, Gen., on court martial. 

Appendix, 156 
health, surely failing, 123' 
Henry, Patrick, cited, 30 
"Hide your greenbacks," 41 
hole in the brick wall, 43 
Holland, J. H., imaginary, 128 
Homer, quoted, 80; puzzled to 

death, 99 
Hooper, Lieut.-Col. C. H., 41, 

54, 100, 115 
horse lost in battle, 10, 11, 19 
hospital in Danville, 106, 132 
hostage, Lt. Manning held as, 

60 
Howard, Confed. Lieut., 28, 29, 

30 
Howe, Capt. Wesley C, 22, 50, 
72, 109, no, 141 



Imboden, J. D., Confed. Gen., 

25 

Indiana soldiers, acrobats, 24 

innocent deliberately slain, 152 

international war, 152 

Irish Bend, La., battle, woun- 
ded in, 89 



J 



James river, 46, 137 
Jefiferson, Thomas, quoted, 31 
Jersey lightning, applejack? 39 



i6o 



Index 



Johnson's Island prison, 126 
Jonah, disgorged hke, 49 
Jordan, H. T., 126, 127 



Keifer, Gen. J. W., 9 
Kerrstown, 20 



Ladies, Confed., kind and 

handsome, 37 
Lee, Gen. Fitzhugh, 5; woun- 
ded, 13 
Legendre, Davies's, 113, 140 

(note) 
letters from outside, 88, 89, 96, 

132 
Libby prison, 40-44, 112, 144 
lice in prison, 102, 103, 132 
lice of Egypt, not "in it," 80 
Lincoln, Abraham, quoted, 47, 

.48 

Lincoln on exchange of prison- 
ers, 89, 90, 125 

Lincoln on right of revolution, 

47, 48 
Lloyd, J. J., returns from de- 
sertion, 133 
Lockwood, Capt., killed, 77 
log houses for officers, 52, 53 
Longfellow, quoted, 136 
Lovelace, poet, quoted, 89 

M 

Manning, Lieut. W. C., tunnel, 
60, 61, 65 

Mark Tapley's "jolly" ex- 
ample, 38 
Marmion, Scott's, quoted, 37 
martyrs in reality, 133, 134, 136 
Mason, Capt. Frank H., 92, 

143 
Masonic Hall, Winchester, 18 
Mcintosh's cavalry, 4 
Meacham's Station, 38, 40 
meat ration, 44, 93, 94 
Mercutio's wound, 118, 119 



Middletown in Shenandoah 

Valley, 20 
Molineux, Col. E. L., 7, 9, 14 
money concealed, 42, 119, 138 
money, Confederate, 23, 32, 33, 

34, 113, 140 
Morgan's guerillas, 34 
Mortality in prison. See under 

"deaths" 
"Muggers," 51 



N 



Napoleon, his strategy, 10; 

quoted, 135 
nationality, northern, 149, 150 
nationality, southern, 39, 150, 

necessity, military, defies every 

law, 151 
negroes, loyal and kind, ill 
negroes, prisoners of war, 78, 

129 
New Market, Va., 26, 27, 28 
Newtown, V., 20 
Nineteenth Corps, 4, 5, 6, 10, 

66,67 



occupations, 83, 84, 85, 91, 92; 

97-105 
O'Neil, Col., Yale classmate, 

killed, 64, 130 
Opequan battle, 3-15 
Opequan Creek, 3, 7 
order to retreat, 1 1 
Ould, R., Confed. Agt. for 

exchange, 151 
ovens for baking, no 
overcoat saved, 19, 20, 42, 46, 

105, 108, 109 



"painfully sober," 85 
parole given, 53, 129 
parole rejected, 53 
peculidce vestimenti, non capitis, 
99, 100 



Index 



i6i 



Petersburg shelled, 45 

Pharaoh's epidermis and ob- 
stinacy, 80 

Pickett's charge at Gettys- 
burg, 10 

plots to break out, 61-75; 1 13- 
119 

policing prison, 87, 100 

prayer of chaplain Emerson, 
58,80 

prey and pray, 121 

Prey, Col. Gilbert G., 54, 115, 
130 

prison number 3, officers', 78, + 

prison 6, the worst of all, 131, 
J 132 

prison rules adopted, 87, 88 

profanity of soldiers, 14, 15, 

39,87 
Putnam, Adjt. G. Haven, 91, 

92, lOI, no, 121, 140, 142 



questions, amusing or ugly, 
104, 105, 141 



Ralston, Col., killed, 61, 64, 

66, 114, 118 
Ramseur, S. D., Confed. Gen., 

13, 15 

rations, 44, 49, 56, 93, 94, 100, 

102, 107, 124, 139 
recapture of escaped officers, 

112 
recount made futile by trick, 

III, 112 
Redwood of Mobile, Yale class- 
mate, 38 
Reed, "shot into inch pieces," 

24, 25, 26, 31 
retaliation threatened, 60 ; done, 

148 
rheumatism, 123, 142 
Richardson, Albert D., of 

Tribune, 52 
Richmond, arrival at, 40, 136 



Richmond, watching explod- 
ing shells, 45 
Rickett's Division, 5, 6, 7, 9, 12 
riddle, fatal to the old poet, 99 
riots in July, 1863, 133, 149 
robbery of captives, 15, 22, 46 
Rodes, Confed. General, 5; 

killed, 10, 13 
roll-call nullified, in, 112 
roll-call sergt., queer, 99-103, 

III, 112 
rope ladder, twisted rags, in, 

112 
rules adopted in prison, 87, 88, 

I4i» 153 

Russell, Sergt. Alfred, 89 
Russell, Gen. D. A., killed, 13 
Russell, Martha, 89 
Russell, Gen. W. H., 128 



Sadler, Major David, 66 
Salisbury prison, 50-55; 61, 

130, 133, 134, 136 
sandwiches, G. W, Swepson's, 

49 
sanitary measures, 79, 80, 103, 

141,142 
Sargent, Lieut, of 14th N.H.,23 
Scott, Sir Walter, quoted, 8, 

37, 134, 135 
scurvy prevalent, 123, 142 
searching of prisoners, 41, 42, 

119 . ^ 

seceded states, a real nation? 

150, 151 
sentries' sing-song call, 44 
sermons in prison, 57, 58, 121, 

122 
"Set the table for dinner," 96 
Shakespeare, quoted, 36, 118, 

119 
Shakespeare's Hamlet, 85, 140 
shelter, lack of at Salisbury, 

53, 55, 136 
Shenandoah river and valley, 

I, 2, 
Sheridan's devastation, i, 2, 3 



1 62 



Index 



Sherman, Gen. W.T., quoted, i 
"shot twice into inch pieces," 

Simpson, Lieut. J. B.; his sly- 
trick, 77 
singing at evening at Danville, 

104, 141 
Sixth Corps, 4, 5, 6, 10, 13 
"skirmishing" a misnomer, 

102, 103 
slavery doomed in any event, 

149 
"Slim Jim," loi 
Small, Major Adner A., 142 
Smith, Robert C, Confed. 

commandant, 81, 82 
Smith, Col. Robert C, Yale 

man, kind, 82, + 
Smith, Sergt. W. F., clerk, 129 
"snack?" or snake? 49 
sorghum syrup issued, 94 
soup, so called (or broth), 44, 

94, 102 
spittoon mystery, solved? 78 
spoon, carving of, 83, 141 

(note) 
"spoon fashion," lying in, 105 
'' Spoon'' \ significance of, 105 
Sprague, Bvt. Col. H. B., 

passim^ and 143 (note) 
stampede, Yankee, 11, 12; 

Confederate, 18, 23 
Stanton, E. M., War Secretary, 

147, 148 
State, allegiance to, 39 
Staunton, Va., march to, 2, 28 
Staunton, arrival and break- 
fast at, 32, 33 
Staunton, Morgan's guerilla 

kind at, 33, 34 
stealing rations from guards, 

haversacks, 77 
Stephens, Hon. Alexander H., 

146, 147 
"Storming Column" at Port 

Hudson, 7 
"Stove Brigade," at Danville, 

79 
stoves in prison at Danville, 

79,95 



Strasburg, Va., 20 
Strickland, undertaker, 129 
Stuart, Dr. Moses, on slavery, 

29 . 

subjugation policy, Lincoln's, 

151 

sunrise on the Blue Ridge, 36 
sutler. Confederate, 84 
swearing, copious, of two kinds, 

14, 15. 39 

sweeping the floors, 87, 100 
Swepson, George W., very 
kind, 49, 50 



table-knife saw, Lieut. Titus's, 
97, III 

Tarbell, Capt. Doctor, assist- 
ant commissary, 54, 100 

Taylor, Bayard, quoted, 80 

tertium quid, solution of mys- 
tery, 78 

theatrical collapse at Danville, 
85,86 

Thirteenth Conn. Regt., very 
patriotic, 7 

Tiemann, Capt. W. F., 14, 15, 
85, 109, 143 

Titus, Lieut. L. B., invents use- 
ful saw, 97, III 

tobacco and the spittoon mys- 
tery, 78 

tobacco given us by kind cler- 
gyman, 122 

Tom's Brook, 20, 22, 23 

tooth-brush, second-hand, $300 
offered, 140 

Torbert, Gen. Alfred T., 3, 4, 
5, 6, 17 

trading with Confed. sentinels, 
54, 120 

tunnel through the Blue Ridge, 
35,36 

tunneling at Salisbury, 60, 61; 
Danville, 109, no 

Turner, Nathaniel, inspector, 
Libby, 41 

Turner, Richard, commandant 
at Libby, 41, 45 



i^ 



RD-94 



Index 



163 



u 



unguentum, two pounds called 

for, 81 
university students in prison 

at Danville, 140 



Vander Weyde, Lieut. Henry, 

artist, loi, 117 
vermin at Danville, 80, 81, 87, 

131, 132 

view-point, all-important, 57 
votes in prison for President, 
Nov. 8, 90 

W 

war. Admiral Fisher on its es- 
sence, 57 

war, Lieut. Gen. S. B. M. 
Young, quoted on, 57 

war, Gen. Wm. T. Sherman's 
"War is hell," i 

Washington, George, Com- 
mander-in-chief, 73, 148 

Washington, Lieutenant, a 
Confederate, 83 

Washington, President, a 
Mason at Winchester, 18 



Washington wished slavery 

somehow ended, 30 
water parties under guard, 98, 

no 
water scarce en route, 20; at 

SaHsbury, 56, 65, 75 
Watts, Isaac, quoted, 45 
Waynesboro, Va., 34, 35 , 
Webster, Daniel, 29 
Wesley, John, quoted, 152 
West Virginia, Army of, 4, 5 
"Where is he at?" 73 
Whittier, John G., quoted, 152 
Wilson, Cav. Gen. J. H., 4 
Winchester, Va., battle of, 3-15 
Winder, Confed. Gen. J. H., 

Supt. Prisons, 112 
wood, split without edge-tools, 

97, 107 
Woolsey, T. D., President of 

Yale, 128 



Yadkin river crossing, 72, 75 
Yale College men, 38, 49, 64, 

69, 82 
Yankee ingenuity and skill, 

83. 84, 97 
Y. M. C. A., of Richmond, 121 
Young, Lieut.-Gen. S. B. M., 

on war, 57 



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